


Little Pistol

by Shut_up_im_Lucky



Series: South and Theta [1]
Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Agent South (red vs. blue) has ADHD, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Humor, Big sister agent south, Canonical Character Death, Chorus (Red vs. Blue), Chorus Trilogy (Red vs. Blue), Chorus is Space Australia, Crack Relationships, Distrust, F/F, Felix is a RAT, Fishercat, Fluff and Angst, Found Family, Medical Inaccuracies, Minor Original Character(s), Nightmares, Original Character Death(s), Original Character(s), Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pre-Season/Series 13, Somebody Lives/Not Everyone Dies, South is not a bad guy, Team Bonding, Theta gets a cat, Trust Issues, starts seven years before chorus trilogy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-21
Updated: 2020-12-13
Packaged: 2021-02-24 16:14:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 24,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21880801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shut_up_im_Lucky/pseuds/Shut_up_im_Lucky
Summary: North is gone, South took Theta and ran, landing into the middle of a civil war, and South feels pretty good all things considered.
Relationships: AI Program Theta & Agent South Dakota, AI Program Theta & Vanessa Kimball, Agent North Dakota & AI Program Theta (Red vs. Blue), Agent North Dakota & Agent South Dakota (Red vs. Blue), Antoine Bitters/Matthews (minor), Felix | Isaac Gates & Vanessa Kimball, Other Relationship Tags to Be Added, Vanessa Kimball & Agent South Dakota
Series: South and Theta [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2046269
Comments: 37
Kudos: 66





	1. Medical Bay

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [South & Theta](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12667476) by [madelinescribbles](https://archiveofourown.org/users/madelinescribbles/pseuds/madelinescribbles). 

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> South finds herself in some medical bay, finding herself in some new company.

When South came to, she hurt in places she forgot she had.

But she was alive, that’s better than what she thought was going to happen.

South found herself in what looked like some sort of cave, or a facility. Which after what she had gone through these past two days, it caused an immediate fight or flight response.

Well, that's not entirely true, South’s first response was a panicked search for Theta, who thankfully, was buzzing at the back of her brain. South felt a surge of relief, which she was unsure was from her or Theta.

South still thrashed out of the bed she found herself in ready to fight, finding that she was in some weird medbay, the building was built into a cave. Excluding South, it was completely empty.

How did she get here? And how did she survive the crash?

“ **I activated your shield before you hit the ground, no injuries besides bruises** ,” Theta pops up beside her, “ **I’m uh, I’m not sure how you got here, I hid when I heard people**.”

“Well, good job anyways pipsqueak,” she says quietly to him, “you saved our a- you save our butts back there.”

If Theta had a face, South was sure he would be beaming.

She did a mental checklist of her surroundings, she was still in her armor, she didn’t have weapons, but she didn’t have them before so that makes sense. She still had Theta, and she was unrestrained in a room that didn’t even have doors. So either these people were absolute morons, or she wasn’t being held prisoner.

“Oh shit,” She hears from the door South turns to see someone standing in the doorway. Now she couldn’t be completely sure since the person was in armor, but the voice and frame made South think it was a woman. She was smaller than South, shorter and slimmer. Her armor was tan, with violet lines all around it. A large triangular visor on the helmet. She rushes up to South, who finds that Theta has Vanished.

“Holy _shit_ your up,” She says again, “you just went through a _shipwreck_ and you're already up. Are you feeling alright? Dizziness? Blurriness?”

“Where the hell am I?” south asks, sounding aggressive as always

She perks up a bit, “Oh right um… do you have any ideas?”

“I don’t know... Chorus? I don’t know jack about this planet.”

The woman nods, “Right okay, well, you are in the medical bay of the New Republic.”

“I have no idea what that is, who are you?” South bluntly states

“Dr. Bowen, but you can call me Suzanne, what’s yours?” she cheerfully replies

“South.” was all she said before changing the subject. “You guys set up that EMP?” South asked, almost accusing her in a way.

“The what?”

“My ship crashed due to an EMP, was that yours?” South repeats, sounding more threatening.

She nervously shook her head “N- no, I don’t know anything about an EMP, but I can ask the General.”

“Yeah… go do that.” South grumbled

Bowen leaves, leaving South alone, Theta pops up beside her.

“ **She seems nice.** ”

She ignored his comment, “How long was I out for?”

“ **About 15 hours,** ” he answered

South takes off her helmet, the weather is very humid, but it’s nice to breathe fresh air for the first time in a while. She looks into the visor of her helmet and sees her reflection, god she was a mess, she didn’t have any bruises on her face, but she could see the tear stains on her cheeks, what would North think of her now?

“ **He wouldn’t think any less of you** ,” Theta says, his tone is quiet.

“Bullshit, he would annoy the shit out of me with a stupid lecture of what I did was dangerous and think I was reckless.” She huffed.

North. She thought about him, the times he had lectured her. As much as it was annoying, she missed that. A second of silence past before South added to what she had said

“probably making a shitty heartwarming speech halfway through it,” she smirked

“ **No swearing** ,” His tone in a more of a joking fashion, “ **I’ll scream**.”

“You better not.” South gave Theta a half-ass glare. “And we don’t know if we can trust these people, so don't go and be all buddy-buddy with everyone, got it?.” she warns him

He nods in response

“ **Someone’s coming,** ” Theta says before vanishing.

“Talking to someone?” Another voice says, the Medic comes back in with someone else, probably another woman, she’s taller the Bowen, with broader shoulders too, she has the same armor, except instead of violet details, she had cobalt blue.

“I’m guessing you’re the general?” South asks, quickly putting her helmet back on.

“Colonel actually, the general’s out,” The woman says, “Vanessa Kimball.”

“...South.” She hesitantly says.

“I thought I heard another voice, were you talking to someone?”

“No, I wasn't.”

Kimball gives her an odd look but doesn’t say anything.

“What is this place anyway?” South asks.

“Do you know anything about Chorus?”

“Besides the fact that it's a planet at the very edge of colonized space? Not a thing.”

Kimball sighs, “Chorus is in the middle of a civil war right now, we are the New Republic, rebelling against the Federal government of Chorus.”

“Cool.”

“No not cool people have been dying for years we’ve been fighting the feds there are no longer civilians, just soldiers, even kids sign up for this“

“Why are you letting kids join?”

She hears one of Theta’s voices say that was rude, which is stupid, its an honest question after all.

“We don’t really have other options.”

“What was it about, the war.”

“The feds wanted to rule everyone with this unfair government system so well, well we fought back.”

This bitch Would love America, a voice says to stop, but it can buzz off.

“Wow, that must've been hard. But, uh, what are you planning to do after the war?“

“Live again? And probably a lot of weddings”

“Yeah, but I mean laws, a government system. Wouldn't you just become the new feds or something?”

“No, it would be different, fair laws and equality”

“Yeah yeah the whole package, I get your point”

South could’ve let her finished, but hey.

“So when can I leave? Got any spare ships I can use?”

“I'm afraid you can't, anything on this planet's radar ends up crashing and due to the war you'll most likely get shot down.”

“Great”

“And frankly we don't have unlimited resources to someone who isn't helping us fight this war”

“Now you're gonna make me fight in your fucking war if I wanna stay, which I don't have a choice in, that's bullshit man!”

“That’s not what I meant-”

South heard Theta say something about swearing.

“THETA SHUT THE FUCK UP!”

“I’m sorry what-?”

Suddenly all of Theta’s voices stopped what they were doing to make a chorus of screams so loud that she fell, clutching her helmet, trying to get it off.

“Oh god, the hell is happening….”

“MOTHERFUCKER!”

With that, the screaming got even louder

“Suzanne come over here! I think there’s something wrong!”

The screaming kept going, South was still desperately trying to tear off her helmet.

“FUCKING STOP IT ALREADY”

“Doc what the hell is happening?”

“I- I don’t know! She didn’t show any signs of head traumas-”

“I’LL _STOP_ THETA I’LL _STOP_ JUST CUT IT OUT!!”

And with that the screaming stopped, it was quiet, Theta’s voices went back to their routines, and that was it. South finally got her helmet off, good, she needed air, real air, her hands were shaking. Damn it, she better not be crying, this was already bad enough. Her breathing was heavy. Kimball and Bowen were standing over her, the two were still wearing helmets, so she couldn’t see their expressions. She tried her best to look intimidating, but she doubts it’s working.

“What the hell was that?” Kimball asked.

Damn it, there really isn’t any avoiding it is there?

“ **Uh ...hi there!** ” Theta says nervously, materializing over South’s shoulder little jerk, “ **I’m Theta, nice to meet you.** ”

“Pipsqueak over here just _shrieked_ in my _ears_.”

“ **You know the rules** ,” He says with a pout.

“That doesn’t mean you get to scream in front of people who aren’t supposed to know about you!”

“But what is he exactly?” Suzanne asks.

Whoop de fucking doo, it’s not like this situation could get any worse, might as well spill everything while she’s at it.

“He’s an A.I.”

“Alright then,” Kimball says, South wishes she could see her face, it’s probably hilarious, “I uh, I wasn’t going to try to force you into fighting the war, or try to recruit you by the way-”

“It doesn’t really matter since I’m thinking of joining anyway.”

“What?”

“I might as well, I have all this equipment, and I really, really, need an outlet to let out anger right now.”

“Really? I’ll talk to the General when they get back, start setting things up for you.”

“Thanks.”

Kimball leaves, and after a checkup with Dr. Bowen, who asked question after question about theta’s effect on South’s health, gives South some space.

“ **So I don’t get a say on the fighting thing?** ” Theta asks after Bowen leaves.

“Unless you want to be left in a chip or alone on a computer? Yeah,” South replies, “we’re stuck on this planet until the war ends, might as well speed up the process, and I’m not leaving you alone with some stranger. I made a promise.”

Theta goes quiet, he sits there for a few seconds. He’s not pouting, but he seems upset.

“Sorry I broke the rule I guess,” South says quietly to him.

He seems to cheer up a little at that.


	2. Small Talk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> South has to talk to people

The only reason South stayed in the medbay was that she had to talk to the general.

If not for that, it wouldn’t have mattered what any of them had said, she would’ve just left to explore the rest of the base. She’s been resting for 15 hours, and had been in a small spaceship before that, she needed to stretch her legs, and the last thing she needed was a quiet space to think about what’s been happening these past three days.

It took 4 hours for the general to come back from the mission he was on. South was ... sort of grateful that during that time both Bowen and Kimball would stop by to check up on her. Bowen because South was her patient, and Kimball because…. Well, she wasn’t entirely sure why Kimball visited her, probably to make sure South didn’t go on a murder spree or something. 

“Hey, I need to ask you something,” She said the first time Kimball visited.

“What is it?” Kimball replied she had been walking around the medbay, something about taking inventory? South hadn’t really been listening to whatever excuse Kimball said when she walked in.

“Have you told anyone about Theta?”

“What? Oh right, Well I haven’t really talked to anyone since we last talked,” she answered, “so no, no I haven’t.”

“ **You promise?** ” Theta materializes over South’s shoulder, he rubs his arms.

“I promise,” she said gently, “but why are you asking?”

“Because people really _shouldn’t_ know about him,” South grumbles.

“ **There are bad people** ,” Theta explains.

“She doesn’t need to know the details pipsqueak,” South warns him, her voice portraying her annoyance.

“ **That didn’t have any details in it though!** ”

“That’s not the point!”

“Does Suzzane know?” Kimball asks.

“We told her earlier before she left.”

“ **She reacted pretty well!** ”

“Shut up Theta.”

He blows a raspberry at her.

“You better log off before I-”

He vanishes before she finishes. South sighs.

“You’ll probably hate me for asking,” Kimball says walking up to the bed where South was sitting, “but, are you sure you’re alright?”

“I’m fantastic! Fucking stellar!” South replies raising her arms in the air, then she sighs again, “these past three days have been hell alright?”

“You want to talk about it?” She sits down next to South and takes her helmet and….

_Wow_

Okay _wow_ , she wasn’t expecting Kimball to look like that. She had dark skin with a variety of faded scars, and even darker hair, that South could tell it was curly even in the tight bun she had it in. But her eyes, holy crap her _eyes_ , they were blue, startlingly so, as blue as the visor of her helmet, and held the same powerful intensity that her voice did.

She was getting distracted.

“Honestly, there is nothing I would want to talk about less,” South responds, thank fuck she was wearing her helmet, her poker face would be shattered. 

“You don’t have to,” Kimball replies, “I should probably head out, other duties.”

“Alright, it was…. It was nice talking to you, Kimball.”

“You can just call me Vanessa.”

“Alright…. Vanessa.”

She leaves, Theta pops up again.

“ **I like her** ,” He says, “ **She seems nice**.”

“You say that about everyone Theta.”

“ **That’s not true** !” He crosses his arms, “ **I don’t say that about you.** ”

“Alright pipsqueak,” South smirks at that.

Four hours passed, Bowen would come to give South checkups, (Theta would keep telling her that South was fine but she did it anyway,) and Kimball would come in with a variety of excuses. It helped pass the time, South would talk to Theta when they were alone, it wasn’t awful, there were definitely worse people to talk to.

The general’s name was Armando Castro, he’s the third leader of the New Republic. He’s not the most intimidating guy, he’s almost as tall as South, but a lot skinnier. He wears the same armor as the others, but his details were bright green.

“Ah, you must be the soldier from the shipwreck,” he said when he first walked in, he walked up to South and extended a hand, “I’m general Castro.”

“South Dakota.”

“South Dakota,” he repeats thoughtfully, “that your real name?”

“It’s the name I’m using,” South grumbles, she heard Theta say to be polite, but meh.

“Well who am I to judge,” Castro shrugs, “So South Dakota, you said that you wanted to join the New Republic army, is that correct?”

“South is fine, and yeah.”

“Wonderful! Well, first we’ll need to get you somewhere to sleep,” he crosses his arms, putting one hand up to his chin, “You already have armor, but you’ll need weapons, and we’ll need to do a test to see what rank you should be at.”

“Well you seem to have things figured out,” South says in amusement.

“Why thank you!” He says looking at South, “Ah that reminds me, Vanessa mentioned something about someone named Theta?”

“Has she been talking about that a lot?”

“No actually, she seemed to take extra care to make sure I was the only one who heard that part.”

That’s good, South didn’t want anyone else to know about Theta, but it might be necessary for this guy to know.

“ **I’m Theta** ,” said a familiar youthful voice, “ **its uh, it's nice to meet you**!”

Castro stands still there for a second. South sighs.

“ **You were the one who thought this was necessary** ,” Theta mutters quietly to South.

“Hey! What did I say about listening to my thoughts!”

“ **Sorry**!”

“Well, this certainly is a surprise!” Castro adds, “Now I understand why Vanessa and Suzanne were so nervous about the matter!”

“Yeah, we don’t really want people to know.”

“Hm yes, I can see why, I’m guessing that’s partially why you came to Chorus, he’s supposed to stay a secret?”

“ **Pretty much.** ”

“I’ll put you in a single room then, farther from people, so you both have more privacy.”

“Thanks.”

“ **Thank you!** ”

“I’ll send Vanessa over to give you a tour of the base, hopefully by then I’ll have found a room for you,” he goes towards the door, when he gets there, he looks back, “Welcome to the new republic.”

He leaves, South and Theta stand there for a moment.

“This has been going better than expected,” she says to him.

“ **Yeah** ,” he replies, he sounds optimistic.


	3. Rat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> South gets to look around

Vanessa came to give South the tour.

Before leaving the medbay South gave Theta a very serious lecture of NO screaming, and NO revealing himself to ANYONE, he agreed and they left.

The new republic base was different than most of the bases South had gone to and definitely different than the Mother of Invention. It was built almost entirely in caves, with smaller buildings built inside. There were a lot of people running around, all in the same armor, just different detail colors. A lot of them were staring at her and Vanessa, the few who had their helmets off had looks of awe on their faces, they looked…. Really young.

“You weren’t kidding about the kids,” South says quietly to her.

“This war has been going on for a long time, we all just want it to stop,” she replies sadly, avoiding looking at South, “up ahead is the armory, its nothing fancy but it’s what we have.”

“Hey Kimball!” another voice says from behind them.

South turns around and finds the first guy in this entire base to not have tan armor. His armor was black and orange, and even though the power armor it was easy to tell he was skinny, under his arm he held a scout helmet. His skin was pale, with brown hair, and beady black eyes. His face was long and narrow, with a strange grin on his face, he reminds South of something, apparently, he reminds Theta of something too, because the voices that usually are looking up skating tricks are now going through lists of animals. He walked up to them with all the confidence in the world. 

“Hello Felix,” Vanessa says, her tone much more positive, “do you need something?”

“Just wanted to check out the person brought in from the wreck!” He says, gesturing to South, “it's all everyone is talking about.”

“I see,” Vanessa looks at South.

“Call me South,” she said, extending a hand.

He takes it, the grin still placed firmly on his weird face.

“I’m guessing you’re not an average soldier,” she asks, pulling her hand away, probably looking rude, “that armor looks fancy.”

“Could say the same to you,” Felix shifts his position, “You are right, I’m what you may call a freelancer-”

South stiffens uncomfortably, and she can feel a wave of panic come from Theta.

“-or maybe a gun for hire.”

“A mercenary,” Vanessa says to South.

“Got it, Mercenary,” South states, “hired to fight for the new republic?”

“Yeah, been at it for a while,”

"Any specialties?"

"Apart from being the best, I'd say I'm particularly good at knife throwing."

Ugh, another fucking knife thrower, lost one, gained another. Theta has gone through 50 animals, he hasn’t found what he’s looking for.

“But what about you? You certainly look like no average soldier.”

 _Shit_. How to respond to this question? South really want to tell anyone about freelancer or talk about freelancer in general. Maybe….

“I guess you can say I was a higher rank than the average soldier.”

Nailed it.

“Really?” Vanessa asks, “What rank?”

_FUck_

“It’s not one you would recognize.”

Felix’s smirk changes in a way that South can’t really describe, but it makes Theta anxious, she can feel unease come off in waves from him.

“So you’re one of those ‘keeping things classified’ kind of people aren’t you?” he says making air quotes with his hands.

“No I just don’t want to talk about it,” she replies, this guy was pissing her off.

“So you’re a secret keeper then?”

“Alright that’s enough,” Vanessa put herself in between South and Felix, “We have things we need to do, Felix I think you do as well?”

He sighs, then puts his helmet on.

“Right as always Vanessa,” he says before walking away, “I’ll see you around.”

“I’m sorry about that,” Vanessa looks back at South, “He doesn’t really like new people.”

“Is he always such a di-,” South starts, “is he always such a jerk?”

“He’s a lot nicer once you get to know him I swear.”

“That sounds like what girls say about their toxic boyfriends.”

Vanessa laughs, its quiet, loud enough for South to hear, but no one else.

“He’s not my boyfriend.”

“You say that now,” South says sarcastically, “but when someone catches you two making out in a closet I won’t be shocked.”

She laughs harder.

They continue the tour, they go to the armory (standard military equipment, but a bit banged up), then the mess hall (mostly MREs, but besides that there was a pretty wide variety), and the training grounds (built more to simulate actual combat scenarios than training individual skills). It's small, a lot lower tech South was used to even before freelancer, but it makes sense seeing as they were in a civil war with no backup. 

“This must seem very quaint to you two,” Vanessa said while they looked over the training grounds, “Your last base was probably a lot fancier than here.”

They came in during a training exercise, the game was capture the flag, with a Fed team (fake obviously, it was a team using stolen fed armor) and Rebel team. And _fuck_ , it was still so painfully obvious that a lot of these soldiers were young, you could tell by their exaggerated body language and disorganized behavior. South looks at Vanessa, with her helmet on it was more difficult to read, but South could tell from her voice she was sad, well, maybe not sad, maybe bitter was the better word. Sympathy washed over South, she couldn’t tell if it was from her or Theta, it might’ve been both.

“That wouldn’t be saying much,” South says in a very awkward attempt to lighten the mood, “the last base I lived in was a spaceship, it’s hard to top that.”

God, she sounded like Wash.

Speaking of Wash, Another soldier with yellow details came up to them nervously, he was holding a datapad.

“The General told me to give you this ma’am,” the soldier says handing Vanessa the datapad while saluting her.

“Thank you,” She replies and the soldier scurries away, she looks over it, then turns to South, “It’s your quarters, we should head there now.”

"Is there anything else before I’m all set?"

"Yes, since you're joining us, we'll see your abilities and any specialties you have to contribute then assign you to a team."

"How long will that take?"

“There are a few teams that need an extra member."

The barracks themselves are old and dusty, and in need of a lot of repairs, and South can only imagine how the bathroom looks. But besides that they are surprisingly nice, the furnishing is way nicer than the rooms on the mother of invention, probably because they scavenge and reuse rather than buy.

But no matter the reason South was silently ecstatic when the room she was given didn’t look like it was from a prison or a hospital.

“It’s not much, but feel free to decorate it how you want,” Vanessa said as South was taking it in, “and my quarters are nearby in case you need something.”

“Thanks.”

“I’ll let you get settled in,” she leaves, closing the door behind her, presumably to give South privacy, which meant.

“ **Can I come out now?** ” Theta asks, his red and blue avatar popping up in front of South

“You already did, but yeah, we’re alone so you can.”

She sits down on the bed and takes off her helmet, the room is small, the walls a greenish hazel color, the furniture consisted of a (full sized) bed with a nightstand next to it, on top of it was an old alarm clock, on the other side of the room was an old desk and chair, and what looks like an old dresser, the room lit by yellow ceiling lights. It was pretty dingy, yet it was comfortable.

“ **It’s nice here** ,” Theta says, his avatar sitting cross-legged in the air. 

“You’ve said that already.”

“ **It’s true though! Everyone is so much nicer here!** ” he raises his arms in the air.

“Really? Even that Felix guy?” South says with a smirk

Theta sits there quietly for a moment.

“ **Well, maybe not him, he’s scary.** ”

“He’s annoying if anything,” South grimaces 

“ **Oh! Speaking of Felix! I found it!** ” Theta says excitedly.

“Found what?” 

“ **When we saw him he reminded you of something, I tried to figure out what it was, and I did!** ”

“And what was it?” she was genuinely curious now.

“ **He looks like a rat!** ” 

South lets out the first real laugh in who knows how long, she looks back at Theta, and he looks so proud of himself for calling that smug asshole a rat.

“Holy crap Pipsqueak,” she gets out through her laughter, “you’re totally right he looks like a _RAT_!”

“ **He’s a ratman!** ” He joins in the laughter, South didn’t even realize A.I.s could laugh.

The two sit there laughing, it was a nice way to end the day.


	4. Test

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Theta does some helmet modifications.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This took so long but its longer if that makes it better?

South wakes up because Theta was being noisy.

He didn’t do it on purpose, he probably didn’t even realize he did it. But South wakes up nonetheless to Theta’s busy thoughts, she looks up to find him flickering in and out of her helmet, his various subroutines chattering about it. He doesn’t even notice her being awake.

“Theta, _what_ are you doing?” She says and Theta’s flails about in a hilarious way, she snickers.

“ **Oh! South!** ” he shouts, “ **I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you!** ”

“Answer the question ya little' jerk.”

“ **That’s mean,** ” he mutters with a pout, “ **I was working on a way for me to communicate with you without speaking out loud.** ”

“Awesome, how’s it going?” She replies.

“ **It’s almost done! Just a few…** ” Theta flickers back into her helmet for a good 15 seconds before reappearing, “ **Finished! Try it on!** ”

She puts on her helmet, her HUD boots up looking mostly the same, there was new information, weather, time, volume levels, and was that a translator?

“ **It’s not perfect, it has a few languages, the one's freelancer thought were important, it isn’t perfect** ,” they said hurriedly, “ **and that isn't what I wanted to show you**.”

A little icon appears at the top left part of her HUD, it looks like Theta’s helmet, her eyes flickered over to it, it opens a little textbox.

_Kimball told me to tell you that your skills test is scheduled for 0800._

“Fuck, it’s 7:30, how long were you going to let me sleep for?”

“ **You needed it, I was going to wake you up before then**.” 

“Still, I need time to prepare pipsqueak.”

“ **Sorry** ,” he rubs his arm, looking away.

“Don’t bother, it’s not a big deal, the updated HUD is really cool though.”

Theta cheers up.

South quickly put on her armor, she had gone to bed with her bodysuit so that saved her time, she rushed out the door, she sorta remembered where the training grounds were, luckily theta had started mapping out the area so she didn’t get lost.

She ends up in the training grounds to find General Castro, Vanessa, and Dr. Bowen waiting for her, Castro notices her first when she arrives.

“Ah! Ms. Dakota, we meet again!” he says to her, Vanessa and the doctor look over.

“I already told you, just South is fine,” she replies, “Theta said I’m having my skill test?”

“Yes, yes,” he said, “I’m assuming he is with you now?”

“ **Yup**!” Theta says cheerfully, appearing on South’s shoulder.

“ _Theta!_ ” South whispered harshly.

“Now, now, don’t worry South,” Castro says with a wave of his hand, “Kimball here made sure that no one else would be here.”

He patted her on the shoulder, she stood there quietly.

“Now! We must get ready!” Castro's points to the air, before turning to walk away “Follow me!” 

Vanessa walks up to her as they walk.

“Your name is _South Dakota?_ ” She says quietly with a laugh.

“It’s the only name you’re gonna get from me,” South replies, slightly annoyed.

“ **I guess it would be a silly name to others,** ” Theta says contemplatively.

“I’m just wrapping my head around it,” Vanessa continues, “Is it a nickname? Is there a _North_ Dakota too?”

South stops right where she is.

Vanessa didn’t mean it like that, South knows she didn’t, but there's no denying the pang of guilt and sadness that goes through both South and Theta, and it takes all of South’s effort not to punch or snap at Vanessa. Theta vanishes.

“No,” South says firmly, “No there isn’t.”

 _Anymore_ remains unsaid, but it hangs in the air.

“I see,” Vanessa says quietly, she doesn’t say anything until they get to the training grounds designated for the test, “good luck.”

“Don’t need it,” South replies cracking her neck, Vanessa handed her an assault rifle to use for the test.

The first part was a simple obstacle course, jump over a fence, duck under barbed wire, avoid tripwire, up, over, down, left, right, duck, slide. It was simple and she finished fairly quickly.

 _15.7 seconds_ appears in a box at the bottom of her hud where the Theta icon is.

“Tch,” she could do better, especially with Theta around.

"Amazing!" Dr. Bowen praises, "alright, the next test is your aim"

South follows her to another area in the training grounds, its an area full of targets, some other furniture

“You just want me to shoot all the targets as fast I can right?” South asks.

“Yeah pretty much,” Dr. Bowen replies.

“Do doctors usually take part in these tests?”

“Well, there’s usually one on standby in case something goes wrong, but no,” she pauses, “there are usually 3 people watching the test, 3 high ranking officers, but due to your circumstances, I’m one of the three allowed to watch.”

“Thanks, I guess?”

“No problem, good luck!” She leaves to join Vanessa and Castro.

Using the assault rifle Vanessa handed her earlier South shot the targets, she wasn’t really paying attention.

“Hey Theta,” she said quietly, “You’ve been quiet ever since we talked to Vanessa, are you good?”

 _I’m alright_ show up in her helmet, it looks like a text message, _I’m just focusing on the test, don’t worry._

That was true, Theta had already counted the number of targets in the room and has been going down the ones South has shot, he was even timing her.

“That’s bull and you know it, you’ve done more than this while also talking.”

He stays quiet, so South decided to do something so incredibly stupid that had someone else suggested it (probably Wash), she would have either laughed at them, punched them, or punched _and_ laughed at them. She decided to look past the mental wall between her & Theta.

You know, the wall that last time it had been taken down, South had cried in the cockpit.

South was immediately overcome with a huge wave of emotions, guilt, sadness, and grief. _North_ , she missed _North_ , she missed him so much and he was gone. He was _gone_ and **_dead_ ** and it was because South had been unable to save him. It was her fault, she could have saved him if she hadn’t been so _slow_ if he’d just let them save him. It was her fault, _her fault_ , **_her fault_ ** **,** **_HER FAULT_ **.

South put the wall back in place, _shit_ that could’ve been bad. Luckily she was just destroying the last target, so she didn’t just have a mental breakdown in the middle of the test. But South would be lying if it didn’t have any effects, there was an obvious change in footing, and due to the heat on her face, she was probably both breathing heavily and also might be crying (god she really had to stop **fucking** crying), but nothing that could cause concern.

_25.3 seconds_

“Excellent work South!” Castro shouts as he goes up to her, “There’s one more test, Kimball is currently getting it set up, there are some questions I would like to ask you, but if you need a moment to collect yourself, that's perfectly alright.”

“Thanks,” South says, trying her best to sound like she wasn’t about to have an emotional episode, “I’ll uh, I’ll get to you in a minute, I need to talk to Theta.”

She walks out of earshot of him and the Doc.

“Okay, seriously Theta get out here right now.”

His little red and blue avatar appears in front of South, sitting crisscrossed, his head down and not looking at her.

“ **That was stupid…** ” he said quietly.

“What?” She snaps

“ **Looking through the barrier, it’s there for a reason, you could’ve gotten really messed up.** ”

“Oh that is NOT the conversation we’re having right now,” South says annoyed, “You’ve GOT to stop hiding things from me Theta. Especially about… about him.”

“ **I don’t want to talk about North.** ”

“Neither do I! But you can't just hide your feelings from me pipsqueak, that’s a recipe for total disaster.”

Theta sits there quietly, South was about to continue before she felt some of his barriers going down, the feelings aren’t as strong as before but it was still progressing.

“I’m going to talk to the General,” she says, “we can talk about this later.”

He vanishes, South goes back to Castro and Bowen.

“Ah South!” Castro shouts as she walks back, “Is everything alright? We heard yelling.”

“Yeah, yeah we’re fine,” she replies, “just having a discussion, you had questions?”

“Oh yes! I was wondering about your leadership skills,” he claps his hands, “how do you work with others? Teamwork and all that.”

“Euuuuuuuu, not great? I don’t exactly get along with people, and my leadership skills are awful.”

“Mm yes I see, it’s not for everyone,” he says contemplatively, “Bowen write that down.”

Vanessa chose that moment to walk back into the room.

“Next test is ready,” she said.

“Thank you, Kimball,” Castro replied he turned back to South, “the final test is hand-to-hand combat, but we thought it would only be appropriate to have you go up against someone of similar skill.”

“...okay?” South didn’t like where this was going.

“I know he hasn’t come out for any of the tests,” Bowen interjected, “but you might want Theta to stay hidden for this test.”

“We should probably start,” Vanessa says.

They went to another area, almost completely empty besides a few punching bags, weights, and a few tables. Probably also used for one-on-one sparring as well, standing in the room was someone wearing black and orange armor.

“Vanessa are you serious?” South mutter to Vanessa.

“He’s the only one who could match your combat skills so far,” she mutters back.

“We meet again South,” Felix says, he's wearing his helmet, but South could tell he had that smug grin on his face.

“Felix,” is all she replies with.

“Okay, both of you place your weapons on the table,” Castro says, seemingly oblivious to the tension in the room.

South places the assault rifle she was given, Felix placed his rifle on the table as well.

“All of them Felix,” Vanessa says firmly.

Felix places a pistol and another gun she doesn’t recognize on the table.

“ _Felix_ ”

He places three knives on the table.

“Thank you.”

South and Felix move away from the table and face each other.

 _‘I’m definitely not going to show myself to him’_ , appears in her HUD from Theta, she snickers quietly.

“And start!” Vanessa shouts, and the match begins.

Felix is fast, startlingly so, but his punches don’t have much power. Though South might have a skewed perception from freelancer. Nevertheless, the punches that do hit don’t hurt South that much through her armor. South manages to land a few punches of her own, it was satisfying to see him grunt when she hit the first time.

Theta was helping in minor ways, analyzing his stances, pointing out openings and weak areas. For some reason though, he kept scanning Felix’s leg like he was looking for something. Other than that, South was having a little fun, she’d been needing to punch something for the past four days, and this smug asshole was the perfect candidate.

Felix tried to throw a punch but something tripped him so he stumbled, South took the opportunity to get behind him and sweep his legs. Sending him to the floor, as he got up, he reached down to his leg like he was about to grab something….

A wave of panic rushes through South from Theta, he finally found what he was looking for, one of his voices shrieked.

_**SOUTH HE HAS A KNIFE** _

Felix lunges at South, knife in hand, going for her shoulder. On instinct, she grabs his arm and using his momentum to spin and throw him across the room.

Felix’s scrawny body flies through the air slamming into the far wall with a loud crash. South hears him groan, knife still held tightly in his hand. Theta sends messages rapidly.

_South are you okay?!_

_I'm sorry I didn't point out the knife before!!_

_It's my fault I sorry!_

“ _Felix_!” Castro shouted angrily, storming over to the wall Felix slammed into.

“Holy shit South are you alright!?” Dr. Bowen came over to South looking over her arm checking for damage.

“I’m fine Doc,” South answers, “It didn’t even graze me.”

“Felix, what the hell was that?” Castro said authoritatively, “we agreed with no weapons.”

“I thought I should test our new recruit in her adaptability,” he says, winded but fuck he was still smug.

“That wasn’t for you to decide,” Castro said, “you know that.”

South wasn’t sure how she felt about how the guy who tried to stab her was getting scolded like a rowdy teen.

“I think she did pretty well,” Felix got up, “knife didn’t even touch her.”

The general let out a deep sigh, “we’ll discuss this later.”

Felix walked to where the weapons table and grabbed all of his, he was trying to appear confident but South noticed how he was holding the arm she threw him with. He walked out with a slight wave. The general rushed back over to South.

“I sincerely apologize for his behavior,” he said quickly, “it was terrible, just awful-”

“Dude, it's not your fault,” South says, she’s honestly gone so far above her anger limit that she doesn’t even care anymore, “just…what’s my results?”

“Well, you see,” he starts, thinking his words carefully, “your skills would rank you very high, but you are disinterested in leading is that correct?”

“Please Don't put me in charge of others.”

“So the three of us brainstormed during your sparring match, you will go to teams who are in need of assistance, but you will have a default team you will train with and go on missions with, it's a similar position to Felix, but you're less likely to do reconnaissance.”

“Sick, which team?”

“Gold team.”


	5. Nighttime

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> South has a bad time

“ **You should really go to sleep South,** ” Theta says quietly.

South merely grunted a response.

It was 2 am, ever since her test had ended south had been training, she spent most of it running, easy way to stay away from people since all you had to do was run faster than them and pretend not to notice. For the past few hours though, she had been using the punching bags, she needed to punch something, and she needed to do it without holding back, which she couldn’t do with another person. The training areas were completely empty, which meant Theta could be out without being seen, his glow illuminated the dark room, she had a light besides him of course, but his light was still nice.

“ **Thanks!** ” He chirped. 

“Don’t read my thoughts without asking me first,” she growls.

“ **Sorry** ,” he pouts.

She’s pretty sure she broke a bag earlier, but that’ll be someone else’s problem.

“ **You’re exhausted.** ”

“No, I’m not,”

“ **Yes you are, you can’t hide that from me.** ”

“Like how you can’t hide your feelings from me?”

He stops, South keeps hitting the punching bag.

“ **Vanessa will be mad if you’re exhausted when you meet your team.** ”

“They’re _not_ my team!” she snaps, “not really anyway.”

She feels Theta’s surprise as she says that, which is weird, to say the least.

“ **I’m sorry,** ” he says quietly, “ **I didn’t know you missed them.** ”

She stops, looking at Theta.

“What are you talking about? Of course I miss them,” she tells him, “why wouldn’t I?”

He was quiet for a moment before answering, " **You seem angry all the time and you were pretty competitive… so I just thought you didn't care** "

Theta floated in place fiddling with his fingers, South knew he felt guilty for assuming how she had felt.

"I did care." South admits, there was even subtle hints of sadness in her tone, “I cared a lot”

She regained her composure, "But in a place like project freelancer, you had to be tough, no one was gonna cry when you got hurt and kiss it better."

" **I know that,** " Theta muttered under his nonexistent breath

"And I was only that competitive because everyone else was, with the leader-board and stuff, The whole thing was bullsh-" south stopped herself before finishing that sentence.

South rephrased, "it was unfair."

“ **Yeah** ,” he whispers, “ **yeah it was.** ”

The two just stood quietly for a second there for a second, neither of them knew what to say. Until the sound of footsteps echoed into the room.

“Hello?” someone yelled, it was a young voice, male probably, a far enough distance away that his voice echoed, “Is someone there?”

Theta vanished immediately upon hearing the voice, the only remaining light in the room is the lamp South turned on a few hours ago, which wasn’t much. But it was enough that she was clearly visible when someone walked in.

It was a kid, couldn’t be older than 18, deeply tanned, she couldn’t make out much since it was dark but his hair looked curly and black, about shoulder length. He wasn’t in armor, but a t-shirt and sweatpants, with bracelets on his wrists.

“Holy crap it's you,” he said, looking startled “you’re that soldier from the crash site.”

“Uh yeah,” she replies awkwardly, “I am.”

He walked closer and she could see him clearer, his hair was dyed orange at the tips, the clothes he was wearing were old and ragged, looking rather big on him. He was small, short, thin build, despite that he was muscular.

“I thought I heard two voices, is someone else here?” He asks.

“Nope, no one,” she answers quickly, “it’s just me.”

He looks at her unconvinced, she does her best to make herself look more intimidating.

“What’s a kid like you doing up at 2 in the morning?” she asks him, “especially out of armor.”

“I feel like I should be asking you that question,” he replies, crossing his arms, 

"Too bad, I asked first" South retorts.

He rolled his eyes at her.

“Alright fine,” he said, “I might’ve been trying to sneak some snacks.”

“Heh, nice,” she replies

After a second of uncomfortable silence, he spoke up, "So, what are you doing"

"Training." 

"Wow, sounds fun." 

"Glad you think so too, I'm always up for an excuse to beat someone up,” she says while cracking her knuckles.

The boy just shrugs as he smoothly shifts the topic “eh, I always prefer an excuse to sleep or snack" 

South could hear theta bothering her in the back of her head to go to bed. She couldn't deny her eyes were feeling heavy, but the same feeling was there, the need to push herself. It still felt like she was in the Mother of Invention and tomorrow the leader board would be there. Maybe she did need some rest.

"Well don't let me stop you from your snacks," South says abruptly before walking away.

"Where are you going?" The kid asked.

She looks at him as if he was the stupidest person on this planet. 

South replied, "None of your business." 

“When you’re out wandering around in the middle of the night in full power armor,” he shifts back into a guarded stance with crossed arms, “I think it is my business.”

_It's fair_

“I’ve been up for 18 hours,” she says, it's been 18 hours and 16 minutes according to theta, “I’m going to bed.”

She sees the look on the kids face shift through a variety of expressions. He looked a bit conflicted with himself.

“Do you,” he says with a pause, “do you want to join me?”

She stands there for a second, considering if the option of eating snacks for the first time in years was worth going through Theta’s continued nagging.

_I don’t mind you staying up if it’s cause you’re making a friend_

“Yeah sure,” she answers, taking off her helmet. She looked less like trash than she did when she arrived after getting some sleep. But she still looked pretty bad.

“Awesome,” he replied, he now had a mischievous grin on his face, “follow me, I know where they keep the good stuff.”

She does, they quietly walk through the hall and find themselves in the mess hall. They go over the counter and to the fridge farthest to the back, they open it up to find dozens of pudding cups lining the inside of the fridge.

“Holy balls,” she says quietly.

“I know right,” the kid says besides her, then grabbing some of the cups, South grabs some of her own.

The two ate their stolen pudding together in the dark mess hall.

“So,” the kid starts, after gulping down another spoonful of pudding, “I’ve heard plenty of rumors about you, but not a single one has brought up your name.”

“There’s already rumors about me?” She replies, she forgot how fast gossip was spread “Well, you can call me South, what's your name kid?”

“Uh, call me Bitters,” he says, “and I’m not a kid.”

“Uh-huh, yeah sure,” South says sarcastically, “how old are you?”

“Just turned 17.”

“Yeah no, you’re a child bud.”

Bitters give her an annoyed look, finishing his third pudding cup in 5 minutes, god teenagers and their crazy appetites.

“I am curious about how you got a vibrant orange dye job,” she brings up, “especially with such dark hair.”

“It's amazing what you can do with bleach and some kool-aid,” he answers with a cheeky grin on his face.

“Well you gotta hook me up, my hair’s been needing a touch-up,” she says putting her hand through the violet part of her hair.

“Yeah sure,” he replies before getting up, “well, we both should get some sleep.”

“Yeah you’re right,” South stretches, “no one should be up at the ungodly hour that is three am.”

“Goodnight,” Bitters says before walking away.

“Nice meeting you Bitters,” South replies.

She makes her way back to her room, takes off her armor and then proceeds to pass out on her bed. She’s out like a light, the bed sheets are much softer than the ones she had at freelancer, which is nice.

_South dreams of North._

_She dreams of when they were kids, on road trips with their parents, when they were teens, helping each other study in the subjects they weren’t good at. When they were in freelancer, doing missions together, having each other’s backs. Before everything went to hell_

_She dreams of North with a knife in his skull._

_She was so close to just leaving him there, to just running to save her own skin. Her brain explores what would have happened if she did. Leaving Theta to the Meta, losing the little trust the Director had in her. Would she have just kept betraying others after that? Desperately saving herself at the expense of everyone around her? She dreams of betrayals, of leaving others as distractions to save herself. Even shooting someone, someone close to her , in the back to keep herself safe._

_And the cycle keeps going, she feels so alone. The only people around her were people that she could dump at the first opportunity. Destroying the only relationships she had left because of this. Finding herself completely alone when it matters most._

_What are you gonna do? Sho-_

South bolts up in bed in a cold sweat, gasping for air. She’s clutching her blankets so hard her knuckles are turning white. She barely hears Theta’s panicked shouts.

“ **South? South!?** ” he yells at her, “ **South are you okay!?** ”

“Th- Theta?” she says, she thinks she might be shaking.

Theta’s avatar is up in her face, she can feel the buzz of his worry and anxiety at the back of her head.

“Calm down pipsqueak,” she grumbles, “I’m alright, just had a nightmare.”

“ **I know** ,” Theta replies almost shamefully, “ **I felt your distress, I tried to wake you up but I think I made it worse, sorry**.”

“Don’t worry about it, what time is it?”

“ **It's 8:13** ,” Theta says, his nervousness still in his voice, “ **General Castro requested you come to the training grounds at 9:15.** ”

“Yeah alright,” South gets out of bed to get ready, “at least I woke up with more time than I did yesterday.”

“ **I was planning to wake you at 8:30** ,” Theta adds quickly.

“Nice to know you’re learning.”

South could feel Theta’s pride after she said that.

She leaves her room at a more leisurely pace than yesterday, following the same path she made her way to the training room, looking at what she passed. It reminded her of the halls of the Mother of Invention, the sounds, full of people running about, everyone had something to do, it was like if the MoI was low tech. She didn’t ignore the stares and muttering of the soldiers she passed.

_The stares and mutters also happened at the Mother of Invention_

Dammit, Theta was reading her thoughts when she couldn’t tell him off.

_Sorry_

The training room was exactly how she left it yesterday, except with dozens of people running around. She sees Vanessa with a large group of soldiers with a yellow-orange trim, with no sign of Castro, South decided to talk to her.

“Yo Vanessa!” She shouts, and the colonel turns to face her.

“Oh! South, we were waiting for you!” Vanessa replies.

“Awesome where's the General?”

“He’s out on a mission, so I’ll be introducing you to your default team” Vanessa places her hands on her hips, then gesture to the soldiers, “South, meet gold team.”

Gold team was made up of six people, they were all wearing helmets so she couldn’t make out many details. They were a variety of heights, from the way they were tilting their helmets she could tell they were talking over a radio, a frequency different than the communal one South had been using.

“This is Lieutenant Williams,” Vanessa gestures to the tallest of the soldiers, “he is the leader of Gold Team at present.”

“No captain?” South asks.

“Not yet ma’am,” Lieutenant Williams answers, his voice is smooth and masculine.

"Over here are your teammates, Sergeant Bitters, Corporal Flores, and privates Johnson and Pedro" 

There was an assortment of hi's and hellos. South only nodded in acknowledgment. 

"Good luck and if you can excuse me, I'm on a slightly busy schedule," Vanessa says before quickly leaving the training grounds.

"YOU'RE THE ONE FROM THE CRASH SITE, THAT SO COOL I HEARD YOU WERE A SPECIAL OPS IN THE FORCE IS THAT-” the soldier who seems to be Pedro starts.

"Welcome to hell," Bitters interrupts, and yep, that's the same kid as yesterday.

“You didn’t tell me you were a sergeant,” she says to him.

“Not sorry, but what are the odds of us being on the same team?” he responds.

_It's about one in-_

“Shut it Theta,” South says under her breath.

“What was that?” a soldier who South assumes is Johnson asks.

“Nothing,” she says quickly. 

“Is it true that you were part of special ops?!” Pedro yells again.

“Uh yeah,” South says awkwardly, fucking military gossip, “I guess you could say that.”

“THAT'S SO COOL!” They yell, “Our newest member is from special ops! ISN’T THIS AMAZING FLORES!?”

The soldier who is apparently Flores gives Pedro two thumbs up.

“WAHOO!” 

“Alright settle down Pedro,” Lieutenant Williams says, then he turns to South and extends his hand, “welcome to Gold team.”

“Thanks,” she says, taking his hand.


	6. Team

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> South is angry and easily annoyed

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fuck this chapter was hard for me to write  
> Fisher cats belong to @kineticallyanywhere  
> Tumblr: https://kineticallyanywhere.tumblr.com/

It's been a week since South has crashed on Chorus. But she now wishes she hadn't. Right now South in three seconds away from beating a kid to death. Don't they ever shut up?

_That's rude._

It's been over 30 minutes since Pedro opened his mouth. At first, he tried to make South, she almost gagged when hearing this, talking about each other's feelings. South sped up trying to get away from Pedro, but he kept up. Meanwhile, everyone else was walking behind them

"-We could do art therapy. It's a thing, right?" Pedro looks at Flores.

She nods and gives him a thumbs up. 

And just like that, he continues on his ridiculous rant about how if South had any problems they would be there. 

"Cool! So yeah, we could totally sit down and do macaroni art. Unless you cope with PTSD with cooking, cause then we could totally make macaroni and cheese instead."

 _He's just trying to be nice_ Theta messages in.

South ignored Theta's comment. She didn't ask for his help let alone want it

"That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. Where the hell would we get macaroni or cheese from? Last I checked we don't have any." Bitters says.

Oh great, he's finally done brooding while looking in the distance. She could practically hear green day playing from his helmet, but at least Bitters said something she agreed on.

_South, I'm receiving something in my scanner._

That's when South tuned out everybody.

"That's because _somebody_ ate all the mac and cheese," Johnson speaks up 

"What are you staring at me for?" Bitters ask.

"You're the only one who would do something like that," Johnson says.

“Bullshit,” Bitters was quick to defend, "You have no proof."

"Oh, so you just happened to have a stomach ache on the day it was reported missing?”

"And I remember you said you weren't hungry that morning. Coincidence? I think not." 

"That proves nothing! I already told you I had food poisoning."

“You had food poisoning the day after the food was missing? That's suspicious-”

"Guys we shouldn't fight! Lieutenant Williams told us that pointless arguing won't get us anywhere. Right?” Pedro interrupts, looking at Flores.

Flores nods silently while South couldn't care less. Theta was in the middle of something. They'd said there was something on his radar. At first it was nothing, but as it grew closer Theta couldn't figure out what it was. 

"Whatever. Can we just get this patrol over with-"

“Speaking of Williams, where the hell are they?” Bitters interrupts.

“Yeah, they should be here by now!” Johnson agrees. 

"Did we walk too fast?" Pedro asks.

Johnson only shrugged in response 

"Maybe we should head back,” Pedro attempts to make a solid plan “Or split up? Or is that too risky? That's always the rookie's mistake in horror movies. But what if we run into something big and we need ones us to run for backup"

“Pedro nothing has happened yet,” Bitters says grouchily.

"But it could. Like what if the Universe proves us wrong anand-"

The trio continued to bicker as South listens into Theta’s attempts at figuring out what's coming towards them.

"OH MY GOD SHUT UP, ALL OF YOU, JESUS, I'LL GO IF YOU'RE SO WORRIED!" South shouts in frustration.

_That's not nice of you_

"YOU, QUIET." She says to Theta.

"But no one said anything," Pedro says, confused.

She almost curses, but quickly makes an excuse, "you were still being annoying."

"Suck it, Pedro." Bitters insults him.

Johnson goes to punch him, South speaks up before he can.

"You too, Bitters"

“The hell did I do?” 

“TALK,” she jogs back into the building Gold team met up at to see where the hell Lieutenant Williams was. 

"At least she was considerate and offered to look for them," Pedro mumbles to the team as South fades from view.

"Dude, she fucking sucks,” Johnson says.

“C’mon Johnson she's not all bad,” Bitters replies, “she helped me sneak some snacks out of the mess hall.”

“Of course that's all it took to convince you.”

“She seemed pretty distressed before she left though,” Pedro offered sympathetically, Flores nodded in agreement.

“By what? Nothing has happened!” Johnson yells, “Even if you’re right she shouldn’t take it out on us.”

" **You shouldn't be hard on them. They're trying, so should you,** " South had gotten to an isolated part of the base, going after whatever Theta was scanning, so he could come out.

"I don't care. What matters now is what that thing is." 

" **We're close. It should be right there.** "

"Where? "

" **Uhhhhh** "

"Theta, I don't see- OH WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?!" Suddenly a creature at least twice South’s size, covered in black fur appeared in front of the duo. Four clawed legs and a tail longer than South is tall, with fangs the size of steak knives covered in pink goo, it stared at her with large green eye. And for a good minute the two just stared at each other until something pulled south into a nearby bush.

"Lieutenant Williams?" South exclaimed, Theta quickly vanished before he could be spotted.

"Don't move." He commands

"What the hell is that?!" South whispered/shouted

_Is it a cat?_

As Theta guessed the thing moved and they got a good view of it.

"It's a cat," Williams confirmed.

"No shit!" South seethed.

Ugh if only Wash was here to see this, he’d probably tame the thing. The two were stuck there and South couldn't figure out why lieutenant Williams was so calm about this. For fuck sake, there was an 8 ft cat right in front of them. 

"How are you so calm about this?"

"I've dealt with worse," Williams said confidently, but South highly doubts his words.

_Worse? What does that mean?_

He doesn't say anything after that.

“WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?!” South now has so many questions, “How have you dealt with _worse_ than a cat with fangs bigger than my HANDS.”

"No time for that. Ready?"

“NO.”

Just as south says that the creature had seemingly vanished, nowhere to be seen. That's When lieutenant Williams stands up, grabs South and bolts back to where the gold team is supposed to patrol.

"MOVE MOVE MOVE!" He shouts

“SHIT SHIT SHIT FUCK FUCK FUCK-” South yells.

_No curs-_

“Theta IS THIS REALLY THE TIME TO ENFORCE THAT RULE”

_Fine._

Soon they got closer to where the gold team stayed. South could hear their voices in the distance getting louder and louder with each step they took.

"You guys hear that-" she heard Bitters say, the Lieutenant and South crash into the middle of the team.

"Oh my god, you're back! And alive!" Pedro says happily

“Of course they are,” Johnson bites out, “Why wouldn’t they?”

“Well seeing as the two of us ran into a fisher cat on our way here,” Williams says in a cool confident tone, “there was a high chance of not us coming back.”

“Wait, you what?!” Bitters whips his head to look at them.

"Did you get a picture of their toes bean?!" Pedro gasps.

"Their lives are in danger and the first thing you think is taking a picture?" 

"Think about the toe beans, Bitters, _toe beans_ "

“I was more focused on the steak knife sized teeth than the paws,” South says flatly.

“Regardless, we should probably warn everyone inside about the fisher cat,” Williams puts out before any fighting can continue.

The group goes back into the base, South stays in the back of the group, in case the cat comes back. She notices Williams is sticking near the back too, probably for similar reasons.

“Hey, Theta,” she whispers, none of the members of Gold team seem to notice, they’re caught up in their own conversations.

_What is it?_

“Sorry for uh,” she stops when she sees Johnson's head move towards her, but he doesn’t say anything and looks away, “sorry for breaking the rules.”

She feels Theta’s surprise and happiness, she feels a smirk find its way on her face.

_It’s okay :)_

Everyone makes it into the base without issue, it's busy as usual with people going and returning from missions and patrols.

"-No, but it would totally work," she overheard Pedro saying.

"Pedro, there is no way you would win this war with an army of fisher cats,” Bitters argues back, “you would probably die trying to tame them. Actually you would die before even looking at them"

Apparently Pedro already had a solution in mind, "That's why if we find a girl fisher cat and tame it"

"How would you do that?" Bitters ask

With full confidence Pedro answers with, "We give it fish"

Bitters rolled his eyes, well South was pretty sure he did, he rotated his head "Yeah, sure like that would 100% work as you try not to die catching those fish."

"Who would clean up after them?" Johnson comments 

"I thought you were on my side!" Pedro whines 

It was almost nostalgic, she was pretty sure she had heard this exact conversation on the MoI. With Wash, York, and her brother, at least it was somewhat amusing. 

_I remember listening in on these conversations, Wash would often talk about sneaking a cat on board with York…_

The message shows up in her helmet, but she knows it's unfinished. Theta’s grief leaks through a bit again, that's been happening more often as the week went on, South doesn’t comment on it.

“You four go grab something to eat from the mess hall,” Williams says to Gold team, “South and I will report what we saw to Castro.”

“Yes!” Bitters almost shouts, he jogs in the direction to the mess hall “let's go!”

“Hold on Bitters!” Pedro calls as he goes after, Johnson and Flores following behind.

The two watched the teens (teens, _fuck_ , they were _teens_ ) runoff before Williams started to walk in another direction, South followed him. They went to a part of the base South had only gone to once when Vanessa showed her around, a building, smaller than most of the other buildings in the base, she didn’t remember what it was for.

_The entire building mostly works as a briefing/debriefing room, it’s also where inventory checks and records go, it's kinda like the base’s office building!_

South made a noise in confirmation, nice to know that Theta would pay attention when she didn’t, made things easier.

They walked in, passing a few different rooms, some had filing cabinets, others looked to be mission briefings. They walked into what looked to be an office, to find Castro looking over some papers, it was the first time South had seen him without his helmet. He had olive skin, long dark brown hair put into a braid, a scar on his left cheek and another over his right eye (just like York), and a small peach fuzz mustache, he smiled when the two walked into the room. 

"Lieutenant Williams, Ms. South, good to see you," the general said cheerily to them.

"We're done with our patrol and wanted to inform you that we had an encounter with a fisher cat,” Williams replied, “There were no casualties, but I thought I should mention that."

“A fisher cat?” Castro said in surprise, putting a hand to his chin, “I didn’t realize there were any in the area, was it an adult?”

“No, it looked to be an adolescent.”

 ** _That was an ADOLESCENT!?_** One of Theta’s voices shrieked, South did her best not to flinch at it.

"I'm thankful that no one got hurt,” The general said. “I'll make sure to inform everyone there's a fisher cat in the area. Anything else?"

"No general."

"You can head back to the mess hall if you want. Oh, and South,” he turned to face her.

"Yeah?" She replied, “what is it?”

"How is your team so far?"

"Infuriating."

"I can imagine," Castro gave a slight chuckle at that, “I’m guessing you’re not used to working with inexperienced soldiers.”

“Not _that_ level of inexperience.”

“But no problems I’m hoping?” He gives South an almost worried smile.

South is quiet for a minute, thinking it over.

 _I don’t have any issues!_ Theta sends.

“We haven’t had any problems,” South says, Williams laughs a little.

“I think Johnson might disagree with you there,” he says.

“Right! Johnson,” South said nervously.

Castro and South shared a look, then he smiled at her, she could feel Theta doing something similar to laughing.


	7. Cat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> South's first combat on Chorus

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> M12 LRVs are warthog's official name

The animal that Williams had called a “fisher cat” kept showing up.

Or at least it kept showing up to Gold team, none of the other squads had encountered it more than once. But it seemed that Gold team encountered the thing at least once on every patrol, no one on Gold team had gotten hurt. It didn’t seem aggressive to them, but the other teams had reported being attacked by it on more than one occasion.

All of which led up to this conversation.

“-All I’m saying,” Pedro continued his “adopt the giant monster cat argument” for the fuckteenthed time in the past three days.

Gold team was on another patrol, this time by car, two M12 LRVs. Three seats each, Williams, Johnson, and Flores were in one, Pedro, Bitters, and South in the other. South drove as they went along a well-worn road through the forest, following behind the car Williams was driving ahead, the road was on a hill, not a steep one, but one that would definitely suck having to climb. But South just wanted to slam her head on the wheel instead of enjoying the scenery.

“For fuck's sake Pedro,” Bitters groaned from the gunner seat, “Fisher cats are the most dangerous animals on the fucking _continent_ , trying to tame one would be _suicide_.”

“But it would be so helpful!” Pedro yelled back, “Think how easy it would be to take out the feds with one on our side!”

 _It_ would _be a very valuable asset_ , Theta messaged in, he apparently liked the idea of having a giant apex predator around.

“Having the thing around would only be useful _if_ it didn’t attack everyone else in the new republic,” South practically growled out.

“See!” Bitter shouted, gesturing at South, “even _South_ agrees with me! And she _never_ joins these conversations!”

“We’ve only known each other for like, a week and a half Bitters.”

“And yet that's long enough to get a pretty good impression of you,” he says smugly.

“Shut up Bitters,” South’s finding the idea of slamming her head on the wheel more appealing by the minute.

_Be Nice!_

South only let out a groan in response, and kept driving. Not listening to the conversation around her, Flores waves from where she is in the gunner seat in the car in front of her, South raises her hand in response.

_South, something is showing up on my scanner!_

She sighs, must be the Fisher cat again, god would that thing leave them alone?

_It's not the fisher cat, it's smaller, and there's multiple._

“What?” South says quietly.

“I said that I hope we find more macaroni,” Bitters replies.

South looks around wildly, hoping to see any signs of what Theta picked up on, it was up ahead. In the distance she sees the shimmer of a stealth unit, then a man in green and black armor, holding a sniper rifle, she turns on her radio.

“Hey, Lieutenant,” she says, “I think we-”

South is cut off by the sniper hitting the car.

“Crap!” She yells, then turns to Bitters and Pedro, “Get down!”

The two duck down into the car, South does too. The sniper’s aim is much better than she initially thought, if she hadn’t warned him, they would have hit bitters in the head. The others managed to do the same, though not without a bullet almost hitting Flores, South sees it graze her arm, causing her to clutch it as it bleeds.

Another shot and a sharp hiss, a bullet hit one of her tires, if she keeps driving they’ll just be sitting ducks. So South decides to do something stupid and crazy, Theta picks up on her idea and panics.

_South what are you thinking?_

_Please don’t_

_South_

_SOUTH NO!_

“Brace yourselves!” She yells as she slams her foot on the gas and swerves the car so hard it flys off the path. Rolling down the hill, she hears Pedro scream as they roll, and Bitters swearing like a madman, well at least they hadn’t fallen off. 

When the car finally stops rolling, it's on its side, South rolls out of it and looks back. The LRV is _fucked_ , but Pedro and Bitters are alive. The area they landed in is mostly a clearing, not much cover, they should move, head back to base.

“That was crazy,” Pedro says as he crawls out of the car dizzily.

“I think I broke my leg,” Bitters groans from where he is on the ground.

“Eh, you're fine,” South says dismissively, she checks their vitals from Theta’s bio scan, besides a few bumps and bruises, they were fine.

_Please never do that again_

South makes no promises, but she does let a crooked grin form on her face.

_Don’t smile about that it was dangerous and scary!!_

They hear rustling and suddenly the rest of Gold team has joined them, Johnson, then Flores, who is still clutching her arm, South can see blood leaking through her suit, Williams follows shortly after. They’re all panting, they ran here, Theta’s still picking up the attackers on his scanner and they’re heading towards them.

“Flores get over here!” She yells, and the corporal quickly moves towards her, South pulls out her bio-foam pen, applying it to the wound, afterward, Flores moves away, “did you guys see who attacked us?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Johnson sneers, “it was the feds!”

“Yeah, no shit Johnson!” Bitters barks out.

“I _mean_ ,” South growls getting the others' attention, “did you see what they looked like? How many there were? What weapons they were carrying?”

“No we didn’t,” Williams says, “We jumped off the path when we saw your LRV go down the hill.”

“Did you lose them?” Pedro asks.

“I think so,” Johnson answers.

“No, you didn’t,” South corrects, their assailants are getting close, “They’re coming straight for us, and fast, we need to move.”

“How the hell do you know that?” Bitters says in confusion.

“I have clairvoyance obviously,” she says sarcastically, she Pedro gasp in wonder, “Oh for- I have a scanner in my helmet!”

“That's nifty!” Pedro says cheerfully, South checks her radar.

“We need to move now, they’re almost on us,” Wait scratch that, they already arrived, South catches sight of a sniper, Theta calculates his shot to figure where it would hit, “FLORES LOOK OUT!”

South grabs the girl by the arm and pulls her from where she was standing, as a shot echoes through the air, a bullet flying past Flores’s head. God this girl has some terrible luck, or maybe she’s just an easy target.

_I’ll make a subroutine for keeping her out of trouble._

As long as it doesn’t slow him down South doesn’t mind.

The snipers kept firing, she didn't see the green guy, all of these guys were wearing white armor. they managed to dodge the bullets but they were in a clearing with little cover so South had to do something fast. She couldn’t get out of there without someone getting shot, and as much as she hated to say it, she couldn’t leave someone behind in her first confrontation with enemy forces.

“ _Dammit!_ ” she shouts, “We need a shield!”

“No shit!” she hears Bitters yell behind her.

_I’m ready when you are South!_

That’s all she needed to hear. South repeats the movement she’d seen North do when activating his unit when her fist hits the ground the yellow tinted dome of the shield unit activates, its large enough to surround the other members.

“Holy crap,” Johnson whispers.

“You really are full of surprises aren’t you South?” the lieutenant says.

"What can I say? Felix isn't the only one with special equipment." South flexed, "Is everyone alright?"

"Ok, let's use this time to reload," Williams orders, the others grab their weapons to reload, a bang is heard from Pedro

"Oh shit!"

"Pedro!" Johnson cries.

The bullet flew through the dome, the panel vanished and reappeared as the bullet was about to hit. It goes into the forest and a cry is heard.

"I …shot him," Pedro says, stunned.

Everyone else was silent. 

“FUCK YEAH!” Pedro yells excitedly.

“Nice save Theta,” South whispers, remembering the last time she saw someone shoot inside the dome.

_Thanks_

Lieutenant Williams stares at his gun for a while until he speaks up with a stern voice, "South, do you think you can make it do that again?" 

“Gyuh,” South turns off her radio so the others can’t hear her “Theta, could you do that?”

_Yeah, but I only have done it in training with North_

“Yes or no”

_…_

_yes_

"Yeah, What do you have in mind lieutenant?"

"We fight back," he says cooly and firmly.

With that their task was simple, shoot the enemy. With the gold team shooting through the dome the tide of the battle changed significantly, it no longer completely surrounded them. It left a lot of openings but it was enough protection that no one got shot...yet

_South! More guys incoming!_

“Shiiioot! We've got more feds coming." South informs them 

"And we're almost out of ammo" Bitters adds

"We need to retreat," Williams commands.

“They'll catch up to us!”

“Theta if I-” South turns off her radio

_No! I'm not Delta, I don't know what will happen!_

"But is there a chance that I can fight them off?"

 ** _I- maybe, but it's too risky!_** Theta’s panicking, he's already switched from messages to directly through South’s brain. 

"SOUTH! we need to retreat" Williams repeats, South turns her radio back on

“You guys go ahead, I'll distract them, while you guys get back up."

"But! You don't really think you can win?" Pedro asks

"If she's lucky," Bitters says, well, bitterly.

A few of the panels in the back vanish.

“GET OUT OF HERE!” South shouts in what she’d heard Wash and York call her ‘scary murder voice.’

The 5 of them ran into the forest behind them, she looked to the feds, she saw a few points and yelled at each other. Probably telling them to follow after gold team, but now that she didn’t have to worry about them, she could have some fun.

“Take down the shield Theta,” She says.

 ** _WHAT?! WHY!?_** Theta shrieks in her head, South flinches at it.

“You know I could handle this better up close,” She responds, “And quiet down, you’re hurting my ears.”

There was a clear view of where the feds had positioned, with their back up here. There were 4 LRVs surrounded with feds, all still shooting at the shield. There was no sign of the green dude anywhere so they wouldn't be too much of a threat. South quickly figures who to shoot first

_Shield going down in three_

She tightens her grip on the gun into position 

_Two_

She takes a deep breath and

_One_

Cracks her neck, this’ll be fun.

The shield disappears and South starts running and shooting, quickly bringing three people down as she jumps over them. She was blasting bullets and her gun was empty sooner than she thought. She threw it at a fed, then grabbed two guns from two dead soldiers as she ducked from all the flying bullets. Then shooting them in the legs. Making her way closer to the jeep packed full of weapons, South grabs a dead soldier and uses it as a shield as more bullets fly at her.

_ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! THAT'S SO MEAN!_

_I'M LITERALLY A SHIELD SOUTH!_

_IF YOU NEED ONE THEN USE THE ONE YOU HAVE!!_

“Stop distracting me Theta!” She yells as she throws the dead soldier at her assailants. It was enough to make both of them fall down. 

“How many are left?”

_Three, no sign of the green guy, but I’ll check again_ _._

“Nice,” South smirks

She aims her gun to one guy’s hand, making him drop his weapon. Then to another person's foot. With the third guy, she shot him in the head but misses. South settled with shooting the guy in the eye, then shooting the other two again. She drops her gun and prepares to head back when.

**_SOUTH LOOKOUT!_ **

She hears a gunshot from behind and dodges the bullet, but she loses her footing and falls off the jeep and to the ground. She looks to find the shimmer of a stealth unit, then appears the figure in green and grey armor. She had only gotten a glimpse of him earlier, he was much taller than she originally thought. Broader too, he wasn’t Maine sized, far from it, but still imposing. The dude’s in Locus armor, and has 5 different weapons on him, including the sniper rifle he shot the car with earlier. South is glad she had turned her radio off, he would have heard her talking to Theta, and something about that made a shiver go up her spine.

He takes aim at her, Theta can make a shield, so she's not too worried about getting shot. But her ankle really fucking hurts, so running might not be an option. She gets ready to move, to fight, Thetas preparing the shield unit. What's one more guy?

The two are interrupted by a giant black shape showing up in between them.

Big, fluffy, steak knife claws, pink goo falling under it.

_**The Fisher cat!** _

It was facing away from South, making what was definitely a growl. The green guy is clearly caught off guard, taking a step back. He recovers quickly and goes to shoot, but the giant animal was faster, swinging its giant claw at the man. It sends the man flying into the forest, South watches as it goes to the bodies of the dead feds, and with a sickening scraping crunch, bites through the armor.

She gets up, back pressed against the jeep. Looking desperately for some way to escape from the giant man-eating monster. Now the question she had was she gonna escape. There was one thing that bothered south that still bothered her. Why the hell does she have the urge to pet the damn thing!?

“THETA WHAT THE HELL!?”

_I'M SORRY, BUT PEDRO WAS RIGHT THE TOE BEANS!_

“Whatever, just focus on an escape route.”

_I wanna pet it_

“You can't even feel things”

_That's mean :(_

“What-” she sees a little red and blue hologram appear over the fisher cat “THETA GET BACK HERE!”

Theta just flies around the thing, the cat sniffs at him and tries to paw at him. He just moves just out of reach, circling around.

“ **Oh, aren’t you cute!** ” He says, “ **I’m gonna call you Pierre!** ”

“We are NOT naming the giant man-eating monster cat Pierre!”

Theta ignores her, choosing to instead keep playing.

“ **Your paws are so cute!** ” He continues, “ **I’ve always wanted a dog, but a kitty like you would be just as good!** ”

“Its claws are as big as my HEAD Theta!”

“ **C’mon South!** ” he complains, “ **It’s never tried to hurt any of us! And it just saved you from the scary green guy!** ”

“Hey!” South yells back, “I could’ve taken him!”

“ **That's not the POINT!** ” he cries, “ **Pierre** **_protected_ ** **you!** ”

“You’ve been listening to Pedro too much.”

Theta crosses his arms, South (reluctantly) walks closer to it, limping slightly. It turns its bright green eyes to her but doesn’t take any action to move.

“Uh hey there,” she says carefully, “you’re not going to like, eat me are you?”

It doesn’t respond, just sits in front of her, staring. It reminds South of the cat pictures Wash kept in his locker. She moves her hand up to its head, the Fisher cat sniffs it but doesn’t stop her from touching it, its black fur is a lot deeper than South expected.

“Fine,” She says, “It can stick around.”

“ **Really!?** ”

“Yeah,” South says firmly, “But we’re not telling Gold team, deal?”

“ **DEAL!** ”


	8. Jacket

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> South talks with Kimball

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is shorter than the others, but that's because the next chapter will have a lot of things happening. I didn't want to have too many things in this chapter. But I'm pretty happy with this one!

South doesn’t exactly get along with people.

Now, anyone whose known South for 5 goddamn minutes could tell you that, her general anger management issues put together with her inferiority complex made it hard to talk to anyone without snapping at them. Which is why, though she would never admit it, she and North always had the same friends, he was the only one who could keep her in check.

But now North was gone, so South was on her own.

The entire time she’s been on Chorus, the only people South really talked to were Vanessa and Dr. Bowen. She didn’t count Gold team since she never initiated conversations with them, with the exception of Bitters, but it was still rare. For the most part, she had been avoiding talking to people, only going to train when most wouldn’t be, getting food either earlier or later than everyone else.

For some reason, she preferred being called an “Antisocial nut job” rather than a “raging bitch.” Probably because she had been called the ladder by pretty much every group she’s ever been a part of. So it was a different change of pace, not exactly better, just different.

“ **You really should talk to more people.** ”

“Shut up Theta.”

South had been spending most of her free time either training or staying in her room. Where she was free to reply to Theta as she pleased, it was the only place she ever took her armor off. She didn’t really mind people seeing her without it all that much, she mostly just didn’t like people being able to see her implants. Too many awkward questions.

“ **I’m just saying, it's not healthy spending all this time by yourself,** ” Theta floated around her head, his arms crossed.

“Hey!” She replied, “I’m not by myself with you around!”

“ **Aww that's sweet,** ” he replies happily, “ **but that’s not my point! At least eat in the mess hall! You’ve been eating all your meals in here.** ”

“No one would talk to me anyway!” South snapped, “Ever since our last outer patrol, everyone here thinks I’m a maniac!”

It had been a week since that happened, South had been put on off duty, she had overexerted the tendon in her ankle, so Bowen had her out of training for two weeks (South had still been doing that, but what Bowen doesn’t know won’t hurt her). Everyone had been shocked when Gold team had come back with backup, South had not only taken out all the feds, but she had done so without injury (ankle excluded).

She had seen how’d everyone looked at her, the fisher cat (or Pierre, as Theta had dubbed it,) had left before they’d showed up. So she thankfully didn’t have to explain the giant apex predator. But she saw them staring at the bodies, she couldn’t deny she had gotten… a bit creative while fighting. The whispering South had been hearing follow her in the halls had only gotten more common.

“ **You don't know that South,** ” Theta says quietly.

“Oh yeah, the newest soldier that just showed up can kill two squads single-handedly and come out unscathed,” South says sarcastically, “I’m sure that I'm really popular.”

“ **From what I’ve picked up from Vanessa and passerby conversations, the same could be said about Felix.** ”

“Yeah but unfortunately I don’t have that ratman’s charisma,” she says, looking over her armor, “even if he’s a sleazeball, people seem to like him.”

“ **Well if** **_he_ ** **can make friends here! There shouldn’t be anything stopping** **_you_ ** **from socializing too!** ”

“I- well,” South couldn’t think of a response, “dammit, I can't argue against that.”

Theta giggled, South felt his pride and groaned.

“Alright fine!” South yells, “I’ll eat in the mess hall! Happy?”

“ **Yes** ”

“You’re a little jerk, you know that pipsqueak?”

Theta’s only response is a raspberry before he vanishes. He doesn’t have a mouth, how does he do that?

South walks over to her armor, picking up the bodysuit and a piece.

“ **Oh come on! Don’t wear your armor to the mess hall!** ” Theta whines as his hologram appear again.

“We’ve been over this,” South says bitterly, “we don’t want people to see my implants, it shows a weak spot.”

“ **We’re keeping so many secrets! Why can’t we just** **_trust_ ** **them!?** ”

“Because the last people we trusted _lied to_ , _used,_ and _manipulated_ us!”

Theta form flinches and flickers for a moment, a rush of sadness and regret run through South, there's a bit of anger in there too, an emotion she’s not used to getting from Theta.

“Well, not _all_ of them obviously, but the important people,” South adds on, “you get what I mean right?”

“ **But we told Vanessa and the General! Those are the important people this time!** ”

“We didn’t really choose to remember?” she replies, “Besides, we never know who could be a spy, we can never rule out spies in war, and I know for a _fact_ you don’t want Felix to learn about you.”

Theta makes an upset noise as he crosses his arms, pouting.

“ **Couldn’t you at** **_least_ ** **wear civilian clothes that hide your neck?** ” He suggests

“I mean, I _could_ ,” South responds, “But I don’t think I was given any clothes that do that.”

Since South didn’t exactly plan on leaving freelancer when she did, she didn’t have any clothes besides her armor. Fortunately, the New Republic kept around a lot of spare clothes, maybe it's because many of the soldiers are young. Vanessa had supplied her with plenty of clothes, the problem was most of the spare clothing didn’t fit South.

South was taller than most of the people on Chorus, she had forgotten how big she was in the years with Freelancer. It’s hard to feel big when your brother has a good 5 inches on you, and you work with amazons like Carolina and Tex, and the mountain of a man that is Maine. You tend to feel shorter than you are, But South is 6ft and has broad shoulders like North.

So most of the clothes South was given were tank tops and sweatpants, men's size, she had a few t-shirts, but nothing that could hide her implants, Theta gave her a pout.

“It’s not my fault!” She tells him, “there aren’t many clothes that would cover my neck _and_ fit me!”

“ **Still!** ” Theta shouts, he crosses his arms and is quiet for a second, “ **I don’t want you to be like Wash, he always had his armor on.** ”

“That's-!, he!-” South yells, dammit he’s gotten too good at arguing with her, she lets out a loud groan, “I’ll ask Vanessa if she has anything.”

“ **Yay!** ” Theta cheers, little fireworks going off around him.

South opens the door to her room, Theta vanishing behind her as she walks out. Vanessa’s room was two doors down from South’s, she didn’t know if or who slept in the other rooms in between them, but she kept her hand on the back of her neck where her implants are. She knocks on the door and it opens.

“Oh South!” Vanessa says, she’s out of armor, wearing a green sweater and black pants, her hair is down from the bun her hair was in when the last South had seen her face. Her hair was thicker than South expected, or maybe that was because her hair was so poofy (she thinks it's called 4b type hair?) it went just a little past her shoulders, “Didn’t expect to have you knocking on my door.”

“I’ll be honest, I half expected you to be out,” South replies, “you got time off?”

“Yup, general's orders, says that I’ve been ‘overworking myself’, so he told me to relax today,” she says overworking while making quotation marks with her hands, “did you need something from me?”

“Yeah I did, can I come in?”

“Sure,” she opens the door wider and lets south in, closing the door behind her. Vanessa’s room is the same size as South’s, with the same color of walls, but that’s where the similarities end. She had entirely different furniture, papers all over her desk, and on the wall, there was a clock, a few sticky note reminders, and lists that South didn’t read 

“What did you need?” She asked.

“Uh, I was kinda wondering if you had any clothes that could hide my neck?”

“Maybe, I’m not sure if I have anything in your size, I'll go check,” she goes over to her dresser and pulls out some sweaters and jackets and puts them on the bed, “Here, try these on, take what fits.”

“Thanks,” South picks up one of the sweaters and puts it on over her tank top, it's rather tight on South, she takes it off and picks up another.

 _ **What's that what's that what's that what's that south what's that** _Theta sends directly into South’s brain.

She looks down at Vanessa’s nightstand to see a book, it’s worn and old, the brown cover has faded, and the pages looked yellowed.

“You can ask her yourself Theta.”

Theta suddenly appears over the book.

“ **Hey, Vanessa! What’s this?** ”

“Oh, that?” Vanessa responds, “I guess you could say a photo album”

“ **Can I see it?** ” Theta asks.

“Sure, just tell me when to turn the page,” Vanessa sits down on her bed next to the nightstand, South puts on another sweater that's too small and picks up another.

“You sure do own a lot of turtlenecks,” she says after she puts on the fourth turtleneck in a row.

“I get cold easily,” Vanessa shrugs as she turns a page of the photo book, Theta looking at all the photos with intensity.

“Yeah I think I’ll steer clear of them,” South replies, “I’d choke after ten minutes of wearing them.”

Vanessa chuckles at that, as South tries on the various jackets she gets a better look at the colonel. She has a scar over the right side of her lips, some sort of old scrape on the left side of her forehead. She’s muscular, nowhere near freelancer level, but it's still noticeable. Her curly hair frames her face, the stark blue eyes almost glowing in contrast to her dark skin, a gentle smile on her face as she looks at the photo. 

South picks up a green hoodie, an olive color, normally she didn’t like wearing green clothes (that was North’s color). But this jacket had violet flowers sewn on the sleeves and back, South didn’t know much about flowers, so she couldn’t tell you what kind. She put it on and it was soft on the inside, and instead of being snug like everything else she had worn, it was looser, she wondered why the hell Vanessa had this, especially when something like this would be so big on her.

She looked over to Theta and the colonel, they were still looking at the photos. South shoves her hands in the front pocket as she walks towards them. She noticed the few times she looked at the photos, she had noticed a specific face among the pictures.

“Are you sure you aren’t dating that Merc?” She asks, a smirk on her face, “You sure have a lot of photos of him.”

“I’m _not_ dating Felix,” Vanessa says in exasperation, still looking at the photos, “we’ve just known each other for a while.”

“ **I don’t think he’d be interested anyway,** ” Theta comments, “ **pretty sure the only thing he likes is money.** ”

“That means if you pay he’ll probably-” South adds.

“God no!” Vanessa shouts as she turns to face South, she freezes for a second, her expression changes, but South can’t figure out what it means, emotions aren’t her strong suit.

“Looks good doesn’t it?” She says smugly.

“Yeah, it does,” The colonel says with a lightness to her voice.

“Why do you own this anyway?” South asks, “This is big on me, it must engulf you.”

“It does, that’s why I never wear it,” Vanessa replies, “I liked the flowers I guess.”

“ **It’s really pretty!** ” Theta says, “ **what kind of flowers are they?** ”

“Purple hyacinths,” she answers, “they’re native to earth, but they’re also surprisingly popular on Chorus.”

“Well, uh, thanks,” South replies, “for letting me borrow it.”

“You can keep it,” Vanessa says quickly, “it looks nice on you, and I sure as hell will never wear it.”

“Oh, thanks!” South smiles at her, “We should probably head out now, to get some food.”

“ **Bye Vanessa!** ” Theta chirps.

“Bye South, bye Theta,” Vanessa responds as they walk out the door.


	9. Meal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> South actually talks to other people!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm real sorry about how late this chapter is, I had some serious writers block with this chapter.

South walks through the new republic base, many people stare at her, at first she thinks it’s the usual “killing two entire squads” whispers until she remembers only 4 people here have seen her face and only one of those people have seen her out of armor. So it's probably that

She arrives at the mess hall, it's rather large, probably the second largest building on base after the training grounds. It reminded her of a high school cafeteria, it didn’t help that the soldiers there were out of armor

South makes her way to the part of the mess hall with a big ass line. She grabs a tray from a stack and tries to figure out what they were serving. There were three courses to choose from, beans, something neither south or theta couldn't figure out was edible or not and mash potatoes. South gets mashed potatoes. Next she was handed a small bread and a water bottle. Now time to find a place for her to sit alone-

“Yo! South!” She hears someone call.

South turns to see Bitters waving at her, he’s wearing an orange hoodie over a white shirt and jeans, bracelets on his wrists, his face has an almost smug grin. As she gets closer she notices the three people sitting with him, to his right is a boy with olive skin and light brown hair, with a green t-shirt on his small figure. Across from them are two redheads, the shorter of the two is a girl with her hair in a ponytail, circular glasses on her face, and wearing a red sweater. Next to her is a very tall man, with broad shoulders, a blue tank top over his large torso showing that he has the muscles to match his size, he’d probably be pretty intimidating if South hadn’t been a freelancer.

“Hey Bitters,” South says as she walks towards their table.

“Holy crap, I think this is the first time I’ve seen you out of armor,” he laughs, “or in the mess hall for that matter.”

“Well I couldn’t come here in full power armor could I?” South says in an annoyed tone as she sits on the other side of Bitters.

 ** _You WOULD have if I hadn’t stopped you!_** Theta says in her head.

“O-oh my god! _You’re_ South!” the kid in green sputters, “Bitters wasn’t kidding!”

“Ith really nith to meet you!” The girl says, she has very prominent braces on her teeth.

“It’s truly an honor!” the one in blue comments, he sounds a lot older than the rest of them, but he still seems young.

“Why?” South asks

“Cause you're the new guy that kicked Ass, that's why!” Bitters explained

_**See, they like you!** _

“Thanks I guess.” South says, not really sure how to respond. Complements were rare and usually backhanded.

“Can I ask you a question?” Green shirt asks.

“You just asked a question” bitter retorts, like the little shiiii- jerk he is.

Green shirt glared, “No one asked you Bitters” 

“That depends on what you ask” South interjects before they can escalate.

“How'd you get so good at fighting?” 

“Yeah, I wanna be a badath thoo,” glasses adds excitedly.

“That's classified”

“Bullshit!” Bitters shouts.

"She won't tell us if she doesn't want to, she's not obligated to tell us," big blue states.

"Oh c’mon Andersmith! How can an exercise routine be ‘classified’” Bitter says before turning back to South, “Did you use steroids or something?”

“No”

“Why would you ask that?!” Green squeals.

“I don't know! She's buff and angry it would make sense” Bitters defends.

“Excuse me!?” South yells.

“Oh my Gosh Bitterths you can't ask people if they're on stheroids!” Glasses scolds.

“I mean it could happen-” big blue offers.

“See! _Andersmith_ agrees with me”

“A government program trying to make the perfect soldiers, using steroids to bulk them up and use them for war and she's blonde. It would make sense”

“Did you really just compare me to Captain America,” South grumbles.

“Yeah, you’re like Captain America mixed with black widow,” Bitter replies to her, “buff, strong, pissed off.”

_**Please don’t murder them.** _

But surprisingly, instead of anger, South felt more like laughing, with the familiarity of this conversation, it sounded like the banter she would have with York, Washington and North. As they ate before a mission, before everything went to shit.

“I’m not some genetically enhanced super soldier,” super soldier yes, but her strength was all her own, “But I’ve been lifting weights ever since I was a teen, combine that with almost constant training and you get me.”

“Does that mean I could get as strong as you!?” Green asks.

“Dunno,” South wants to laugh, such naivety, “Maybe.”

“No way Palomo!” Bitters teases, “you don’t have enough endurance to do basic training, even someone with asthma runs better than you! No offense Jensen.”

“None Taken,” Glasses (or Jensen) says.

South continued to eat her food while listening to them, they were close, with inside jokes, stories, and teasing, it made her nostalgic.

“Oh apologies!” Andersmith says suddenly, “I just realized we haven't introduced ourselves properly.”

He gets up, practically bolting to the other side of the table to South, he stands straight and extends his hand.

“Sergeant Johnathon Andersmith at your service!” he says, a wide grin on his face, South didn’t really notice how tall he was until he stood up, he was the first person South had seen in the new republic that was taller than her.

 _ **He’s as tall as North was** , _is whispered in her head.

“South,” is all she replies with as she shakes his hand.

“I’m Corporal Katie Jensthen,” the girl says from behind her.

“Charles Palomo!” she hears, “slayer of women, woer of evil!”

South turns to look at him.

“Wait… shoot.”

“You’re never going to get that right Palomo,” Bitters says.

“Shut up Bitters”

“How’d you guys meet anyway?” South asks, “you guys aren’t in the same squad.”

“Oh we’ve been friends for a long thime,” Jensen answers.

“You talk to these people once and they won't leave you alone,” Bitters says grouchy, Andersmith smacks the back of his head before going back to his seat.

“You just act upset because you can't admit you secretly appreciate our company,” Palomo teases.

“I am this close to punching you,” Bitters pinches his fingers.

“Your fingers are touching.”

“Yup.”

He tackles his friend off of the bench, punching him, Palomo punches back. Andersmith sighs from where he sits, Jensen let out a quiet laugh.

**_At least guns aren’t involved_ **

South looks back at the other two, Jensen gives a shrug and continues eating, and Andersmith just starts shoveling mashed potatoes into his mouth while glaring at his friends disapprovingly. South takes the opportunity to examine the two of them more closely, they looked similar, they had the same color of hair and skin tone. Though Jensen’s hair was straight while Andersmith’s was rather curly. 

Jensen looked rather non-threatening, she definitely didn’t look like a soldier. She didn’t seem to have seen combat either, or she had been really lucky. She had little to no traces of injury at first glance, it was only when South looked closer that she noticed how calloused and scarred the girl’s hands were. They looked like they’d been burned, there were quite a few piercing and slashing scars, it reminded South of 479er’s hands.

Andersmith was rather intimidating looking at first glance, he was tall and broad, very obviously muscular as well. He looked older than Jensen, but not by much. He didn’t have many scars, but he had a few fresh injuries, his right forearm was wrapped in bandages, some band aids on a few of his fingers, and his left shoulders had some nasty bruising. But South kept finding herself looking at his face, he had a large scar on the right side of it. It started right above his eyebrow, traveling down to his neck, disappearing under his tank top. South couldn’t tell what kind of scar it was, it was too wide to be a slice, too narrow to be a scrape from a fall, maybe it was a burn scar? From a rather brutal enemy.

_**Looks like someone peeled off his skin with a knife** _

Before South can process that rather morbid thought from Theta, she's taken out of her thoughts by Jensen’s voice.

“Ith it thrue what everyone’ss been thaying?” She asks, “That you thook down thwo whole thquads of feds thingle handedly?”

“What's it to you?” South snaps, her tone more aggressive than she intended.

“That'sss tho cool!” Jensen replies, leaning across the table towards South.

“It’s very impressive,” Andersmith adds, looking away from his friend’s punch out, “I don’t even know if Felix could pull that off!”

“Really?” South says incredulously, when she had sparred with Felix she could easily say he was on par with some of the lower freelancers. He could have taken all those feds out pretty quickly.

_**He could be holding back to keep from scaring people.** _

“Yeah,” Jensen responds, “That theems more like Locuth would do.”

“Locus?” South asks.

“Shortly after Felix was hired by the New Republic, the feds hired their own mercenary,” Andersmith answers, uncharacteristically monotone, “He’s called Locus, like the kind of armor he wears. He’s brutal, mostly sticking to sniping but terrifyingly effective in all forms of combat.”

“Mosth thouldiers that meeth him don’th come back,” Jensen says solemnly, Andersmith looks away, hand going up to his face.

_**Wasn’t the guy who shot at our car wearing Locus armor?** _

South decides to stay quiet, not wanting to explain how she met Locus and still came back unscathed. Nice to know about the guy everybody’s afraid of, he might be a challenge to fight, maybe the one good fight on this planet.

Palomo and Bitters sit back down at the table, a bit bruised but nothing serious, from the way they continue eating, they probably do that a lot. The rest of dinner continues without anything noteworthy happening, when she finishes eating, South gets up and leaves the mess hall. With little more than a “see you later losers” as a goodbye.

South enters her room, quickly throwing off the hoodie Kimball gave her because it was too fucking _hot_ for it. Theta appears almost immediately as the doors closes, his avatar looking the kind of smug only a kid could pull off.

“Happy?” South asks unamused.

“ **Very,** ” Theta chirps, his body language shifts into more thoughtful and anxious, “ **I wanted to ask you something.** ”

“What is it pipsqueak?” South walks over to her dresser, placing the hoodie on top of it.

“ **Did you,** ” he pauses, South can feel him looking through things, “ **Did you think it was weird that that Locus guy could turn invisible?** ”

“Not really,” South responds, she hadn’t really thought about that, but now that Theta had brought it up, South noticed something about that _was_ odd, “why?”

“ **Because I thought Freelancer were the only ones with those kinds of stealth units.** ”

That was it, how _did_ he get one? How were mercenaries getting their hands on freelancer tech? C.T. had defected to the insurrection, was that it?

“Huh,” South simply says, “that is really strange.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These chapters take place 7 years before the Chorus trilogy BTW  
> Also, would you guys mind if the next chapter has a collection of miscellaneous mini-chapters?


	10. Memes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> God I'm so sorry I've been having MAJOR writer's block, take a chapter of incorrect quotes as an apology

Theta: **Can I Swear?**

South: Yeah sure

Theta: **F**

South: Go on

Theta: **I’m nervous**

* * *

South: I get it you had a really bad day, you're stressed out, seven people died

Vanessa: TWELVE PEOPLE

South: not the point, look they're dead now and really who's fault is that?

Vanessa: YOURS

South: that's right, no ones

* * *

Theta: **can I go to this party**

South: are you going to drink?

Theta: **no?**

South: are you gonna have sex?

Theta: **what- no??**

South: you're gonna do drugs?

Theta: **no!**

South: then why the fuck you wanna go then??

* * *

South: _Theta_!

Theta: **What?**

South: Where’s my power armor?!

Theta: **Your what?**

South: WHERE. IS. MY. _POWER_ . **_ARMOR_ **!?

Theta: **I uh… Put it away!**

South: _WHERE_!?

Theta: **Why do you NEED to know!?**

South: I NEED IT

Theta: **Nuh-uh, you are not running to play the hero! You promised me that you would get a full night’s rest!**

South: SOmeone is in DANGER!!

Theta: **Your _HEALTH_ IS IN DANGER!!**

* * *

Vanessa: I really like this good cop bad cop thing you two have

Theta: **It's not really a "thing" it's more that I'm nice and South is not**

* * *

South: How come whenever I have fun it's considered wrong?

Theta: **People die when you have fun**

* * *

South: How does gold team usually get out of these messes!?

Bitters: We don't! We just make a bigger mess that cancels out the first one!

* * *

Vanessa: I'm too tired for this

Theta: **For what?**

Vanessa: [gestures vaguely]

* * *

Pedro: It's one mission! What's the worst that could happen?

Flores: Injury

Bitters: Murder

Johnson: Death

South: general calamity

* * *

Bitters: You look so unapproachable 

South: And yet, here you are

* * *

Bitters: hey south can you take care of it?

South: no worries, I have a permit 

The permit: _I can do what I want_

> _-south_

* * *

Theta: **I made a marshmallow Agent South**

Theta: **See her arms are crossed because gold teams annoying her**

Theta: **you like it?**

South choked up: it's fine.

* * *

Pedro: I AM GOING TO SAY THE F WORD NOW!

South: you don't need to announce it to the whole group 

Pedro: FUCK!

Williams: Pedro, _NO-_

* * *

South by the coffee maker: So, who broke it? I’m not mad, I just want to know

Pedro: I did I broke it-

South: No, no you didn’t, Palomo?

Palomo: Don’t look at me! Look at johnson!

Johnson: What? I didn’t break it

Palomo: Really? How’d you even know it was broken?

Johnson: Because it’s sitting right in front of us, and it's broken

Palomo: Suspicious

Johnson: No! It’s not!

Andersmith: If it matters, probably not, Antoine was the last one to use it

Bitters: Liar I don’t drink that crap!

Andersmith: Oh then what were you doing by the coffee cart?

Bitters: I use the wooden stirrers to help with my dye job everyone knows that _JOHN-_

Pedro: Don’t fight I broke it let me take responsibility South-

South: NO! Who broke it!?

Jensen: Ssthouth, Flores’s been awfully quiet

Flores: !? >:(

Jensen: Yeah really!

\---

Theta in another room: **South broke it, it burned her hand so she punched it**

Vanessa: Of course she did

* * *

South: I have a full time job. As an accountant 

Theta: **No you don't-?**

South: _Nobody asks questions if you say you're an accountant_

* * *

Felix: I have trauma

South: Everyone has trauma dipshit

Vanessa: it came free with you joining this shit ass war


	11. Adjusting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some smaller stories

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am SOOOOOOOOOO sorry for how long this took! I had major writers block but that doesn't excuse the amount of time. The next chapter shouldn't take nearly as long, thanks for bearing with me

South and Theta crashed on Chorus a little over two months ago, and both of them are having trouble adjusting.

It’s strange, despite still fighting in a war (more so than she was at freelancer, the new republic was _actively_ fighting their enemy), it wasn’t as tense as South was used to. The amount of times she’s had to be reminded by Theta that people complimenting her was not sarcasm is more than she’d like to admit, and she’s nearly snapped at someone for staring at her more times than she can count.

She didn’t notice it at first, but as she got used to him, South started noticing Theta’s troubles adjusting. He was incredibly paranoid, and South noticed how he would worry about being listened to or watched at any given moment. An argument between soldiers sent an immediate feeling of anxiety through her. He was a bit of a perfectionist, going into a panic whenever something went wrong in any way.

She didn’t care, it’d be hypocritical of her too. She’s been trying to get him to leave her alone, and to stop reading her thoughts without permission. And South may be a lot of things, but a hypocrite isn’t one of them. 

She doesn’t care

It would be stupid for her to

So she doesn’t

* * *

“Can I drive on the way back?” Bitters asks.

“No,” South answers without looking, she stares at the back of the jeep in front of them.

“Oh come on!” he whines, “Why are you the only one whose allowed to drive?”

Gold team was doing a supply run, this was the first time South had gone on one. They took 2 jeeps, South and Bitters were riding with Flores instead of Pedro this time.

“Don’t like it, ride with Williams,” she replied, a smirk hidden by her helmet.

Bitters turns to face her, starts a reply, but is cut off by something South can’t hear, he then turns around to the backseat.

“Oh shut up Flores,” he says.

Right, gold team had its own channel, a private one, most of her teammates didn’t use it often so South forgets abouts it. Johnson will use it occasionally, he usually gets hit or scolded after so she assumes he uses it to badmouth her (coward doesn’t have the guts to do it to her face), and Flores uses the private channel exclusively. South doesn’t mind, doesn’t mind at all.

Doesn’t mind the fact that she’s literally never heard Flores talk, despite knowing her for over a month by now. Not bothered by Johnson’s remarks, nor the fact she knows exactly what he’s saying about her without even hearing him. She doesn’t think about the staring and whispers she gets around the base, it’s not like she’s not used to it. She doesn’t care about the obvious distrust of her, why should they trust her? She keeps so many secrets and almost betrayed her own-

“South?” she hears Bitter say

“What?” She says sharply, it comes out harsher than she intended.

“You spaced out on us,” he replies, “whatcha thinking about?”

“Nothing,” She lied, “Not that that's any of your business kid.”

“I’m 17,” Bitters snaps, “I’m _not_ a kid!”

“Whatever you say,” South shrugs, she hears Theta giggle.

“We’re here,” Williams says over the radio.

South looks up to see an abandoned stripmall. The paints and signs were chipped, broken and faded. Covered with plants and vines growing out of the many cracks in the walls. It was beautiful in a weird way. She stops the jeep once she's caught up with Williams and the others. Everyone quickly got out. 

"Holy shit," Bitters mutters

"I haven't seen one of these in forever," South says in astoundment

"Red team found it a while back," Williams says to the team, “They reported that it’s been completely untouched since the war started.”

"Wait, if red team found it,” Pedro asked, “Why'd they send us?"

"Dude shut the fuck up, this is literally the best thing that's happened to us," Bitters whispers to him.

"We're the only ones who can avoid the fisher cat” South interjets before that discussion can continue “they sent us to check it out because we can't be interrupted." 

Pedro turns to Flores, who starts making excited hand motions, he nods at her. 

"I agree with flores we should explore right now!" He says with a grin.

"You and flores go together," Williams tells them

"Ok!" Pedro shouts as he and Flores both give thumbs up

"Bitters and johnson, you are also partners," Williams ignores the groans from the sergeant and private and continues, "and South and I will go by ourselves"

“Bullshit!” Johnson yells, "How come South doesn't get to have to be stuck with anyone?!"

 _I mean i'm still here_ Theta messages in and South has to resist the urge to snicker, _So that means technically you’re still stuck with me_

"Yeah that's not fair! Shouldn't we all split up?" Bitters adds.

 _He's got a point we'll be covering more ground that way_ Theta texts

"South can handle things by herself,” Williams says while crossing his arms, his tone sounding more like a parent than commanding officer, “That's why she's allowed to go by herself."

"So you're saying that we're too incompetent to go by ourselves?" Johnson replies with an angry glare

"No I'm saying you're safety is my first priority,” Williams says with a stern glare “and there's a lot of ground to cover, if something happens chances are reinforcements won't be there in time to help"

"Yeah ok, but-"

"CAN WE GO EXPLORE NOW?! WE CAN FIGHT OVER THE RADIO LET'S GO ALREADY!" Pedro Shouts.

"Pedro's right. C'mon."

Bitters and Johnson begrudgingly walk off to the end of the strip mall ahead of South and Williams. Meanwhile Pedro and flores Sprinted into the core of it, already losing sight of them. South heard Williams chuckle at those two excitements. It wasn't long after everyone went their separate ways. 

Right now it was just South with Theta hovering next to her. Theta was rambling about cool facts with a few comments here and there from South. All the while she looked inside the stores for anything that they could use back in the base. There was something that was bothering South. All the stores seemed to be left open with the exception of a few closed ones, and even those had their doors unlocked. Even if the mall had been opened when it was abandoned, there’s no reason for all the doors to be unlocked.

“ **So then Wash found the grapes in the freezer-** ”

South stops what she was doing and turns to face Theta, “is that where they were? Wait, hold up- why the hell were the grapes even there in the first place?”

“ **Because it was supposed to be funny.** ”

“Uh huh.”

“ **It worked better with when we put his muffin in the freezer** ”

“Jesus, how many things did you put in there??” she asks.

“ **A lot. This went on for about a month. Anyways! So yeah he found his lunch frozen and then york told Wash he should microwave it so that they would defrost. Delta tried to explain, but York cut him off before he had the chance to.** ”

“And he actually listened?” South deadpans. 

“ **Yeah! It was fun to see grapes explode. Felt bad that he got in trouble though** ”

South snorts, “Don't be, that’s hilarious”

After a while of South looking through all the empty stores, Theta gives her a notification that Pedro and Flores were close by. South didn't pay much mind as long as it wasn't something she needed to worry about. It didn't take long till she could hear voices from a distance. 

"Hey South!" Pedro shouts, South turns to see him with a shopping cart, it’s going so fast that Flores has to run to keep up.

“What is it?” South responds, Pedro skids to a halt in front of her.

“We should be heading back by now,” He says, his helmet is on, but his tone was light, and it was easy to tell he was out of breath, “Want to put what you found in here?”

Pedro jesters to the cart next to him and Flores.

“Sure,” South replied, dumping all the items she had found. 

The walk back wasn't too eventful mostly just Pedro filling up to silence with his rambling. There were times, South assumes, Flores added to the conversation. The biggest tell was Pedro whipping his head over to her direction and continued on what he was saying. South also made an effort, although a half ass one to listen and chime in at curtain times. 

“This place is great! Don't you think so?” Pedro says, attention more toward South than Flores. 

"I guess.” she shrugged

“I wonder if we can have this reopen someday.” he sighed, if Theta and South didn't know any better could trace a hint of sadness underneath his optimism.

Quiet took over, with the only noise being the sound of their armor moving and the moving shopping cart. With what Pedro previously said it made South think what gold team could've been doing if they never had a war to fight. Theta joined in by listing off activities they could do and shops he'd thought they might visit.

After all, they were just kids who should be off doing dumb shit in a mall with their friends and not fighting in a war none of them asked to be apart of. 

Pedro's whole mood changed as he saw everyone else in the distance. He sped up, practically sprinting as he rolled the cart and waved his hand like a mad man. 

“Jonshon! Look at what we found! 

Pedro slowed down once he saw bitter crouch down and held his stomach. He was groaning in pain. Pedro looked up back at Johnson and asked, "What happened to Bitters?”

“He thought it was a good idea to drink a fanta that was years old.” he said, sending a look to Bitters.

Which he replied with, “Fuck off! At least the snacks are still good” 

The level of concern in South skyrocketed as she heard this, she could tell it was from Theta. Who was already searching up ‘what to do when someone gets food poisoning’, in the back of her mind. 

“They're all stale by now." Johnson scoffed

"You don't appreciate-"

"Don't care." Johnson cut him off before he changed the subject. 

"Anyways we got a lot of canned and box food. It'll probably last us a while." He reports, jestering at the two full carts behind them.

"Too bad there's no electricity, we could've had ice and frozen food.” Johnson adds

_They could always use solar paneling to keep up the power!_

South thinks about it. On paper it'd sound like a good solution, but when put into action. There would definitely be some complications. 

That's great and all, but that could give away this location to the feds and then raid the place. 

“And we got blankets and other important stuff.” pedro joins in.

Johnson walks up to him, looking at their cart, “Why did you get five stacks of stickers and bead kits? And what's the use of sunglasses?” he asks, waving up the hello kitty themed sunglasses 

“Self indulgence." Pedro smiled. 

A text pop up, _Very important_

“Yeah shut the hell up Johnson,” Bitters adds as he points to the beads, “Mind if I take some of those?”

South knew for a fact Theta was nodding in agreement. She repressed the urge to laugh. 

They got to explaining all the other items they had, "We also got bug spray, tennis rackets that are also tasers!" 

Pedro demonstrates by turn on one of the rackets on, which surprisingly had their batteries still intact. South thinks Flores had spoken up since Pedro immediately stopped talking for a few seconds

"Oh yeah can't forget sunscreen!”

“Good thinking.” Williams praised them. Then looks at South

“I got some things we can use as weapons and random electronic stuff that we could repurpose.” she states

He nods approvingly, “That's useful."

Then goes on to tell the group his findings, "I got more medical supplies, I hope the pain medications are still good to use."

After that, Williams clapped his hands once before announcing his new orders, "Overall, it was a good run. Pack it up to the LRVs, and we can head back home.”

“Yes sir!"

* * *

_It's your fault_

_It's your fault_

_They’re dead_

_It’s your fault_

_You could have saved them_

_But you didn’t_

_They died, and it’s_ **_your_ ** _fault_

_You shouldn’t have trusted the data_

_You failed them_

_You_ **_killed_ ** _them_

_Weak_

_Failure_

**_Murderer_ **

_Orchid armor lays on the ground, it's covered in holes as blood pools around her, a gun still held by her cold dead fingers, she fought until the very end. She lays, almost protectively over a set of purple armor, also riddled with holes. (that’s not right?)_

_A knife is deeply impaled in the cranium of the violet armor, the helmet is gone (wait, wasn't he wearing it before?) revealing a blonde man, blood flows down his face, his grey eyes dull and empty. You can still hear his last words (but you weren’t there?) whisper in your ears._

_He’s dead_

_They’re both dead_

_Because you failed them_

_It's_ **_your_ ** _fault_

_If you were faster_

_You_ **_should_ ** _have been faster_

**_W̴̺̲̼̿̌͌͘̕͜͜h̴̹̰͗̊͜y̶̧̪̞̪̲̋̽̀ ̵̧̜̲͎̇̾̋̓̿w̷̻͕̫͓̏͒́͘ę̵̛͍̼̾͝r̵̫͈͙͛̀̄͠ĕ̸̩̼͊̂n̴͇̦̪̦͒͋̉̈́̄'̷͔̭͍̥͑͗͘t̸̲̿̂ ̴̲͍͂ẏ̸̢͉̽̏̈́͜o̴̭͍͓̫͑̚̕u̴͋̐ͅ ̷̬͚̎͐͋̕͘f̶̦̰̦̎͘a̵̡̠͂̋̑s̸̲̦͍̗̉̂̎͗ṭ̵̪̼̠̤͒̚͝ę̸̦̄͊r̸̨̟̔?̵̯̥̘̿̏̈́̽_ **

South wakes up with a jolt, gasping for breath. She sits up in her bed, looking over at the alarm clock on the nightstand, 4 am, she didn’t need to get up yet. She gulps down a breath and looks down at her shaking hands, she doesn’t feel anything from Theta, nor does he pop up, so he must’ve logged off for the night.

“Fuck,” she whispers, running her fingers through her hair.


	12. Clang

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> South is just... so tired with these people's dumbassery

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The first part of this chapter was mostly written by my friend, the second half was mostly me  
> haha... this chapter hurt to write  
> Also look at this!  
> [Look at this art!](https://moco-monkey.tumblr.com/post/636103196587196416/more-fan-art-for-the-south-and-theta-rebels-fic#notes)

South wasn't doing much. Technically, she was on a short break from her workout. Which Theta had insisted on doing. South wanted to train while Theta wanted her to get some sleep as her sleep schedule was pretty inconsistent. They ended up compromising, South wouldn't take a nap but would walk around a bit and eat a light snack. 

The kid was going on about something dealing with water based speakers with little dancing toys inside. South listened as she scratched on her leg, it didn't make any scratch marks or hurt, but it was something to focus on as Theta spoke. Both could hear a bunch of people coming her way. South would've tuned them out if she hadn’t recognized their voices. 

"Could you guys shut the fuck up?" Bitters barked out. 

All of them had their helmets off. Bitters looked like he was ready to punch someone, his face a bit red, though it was harder to see with his tan skin. His friends were tailing him as they kept bringing up questions. 

"C'mon you've been keeping this from us for MONTHS!" Green boy yelled, what was his name? Charlie? Palomo? He had his arms flared out in exasperation.

Theta was now invested and South was not

"So what? I keep basically everything from you all. So it's not a big deal!" Bitter glared back at them. 

"It isth a really big deal!" The girl, Jensen, Theta reminds her, points out. 

Bitters saw her standing there, and both had made eye contact. Great. Worst part is, he was walking towards her direction with his group not far behind him. 

"South! Tell them to fuck off" he wines to her, like a little kid tattling to get what they want. 

She thinks about it for a second before deciding to agree, she shrugged, 

"Sure" Then turned to the rest of them and said "screw off."

Bitters whipped his head back to everyone else, "Ok guys you heard her! Now leave me alone."

"That means you too." South clarifies, just in case he was planning on bothering her afterwards. 

"Wow, thanks for being there for me. I can really feel your love you have for me from here." He says sarcastically.

There was an abrupt response afterwards, all talking at the same time and even though South could hear all of them perfectly fine, with the help of Theta, it was still way too much she wanted to deal with, she pinched the bridge of her nose. sighed. It was enough to silence everyone, who were now dead quiet. 

"Why the hell are you even bothering me for?" South asked

 _You could've asked more nicely_

“Oh, buzz off Theta,” she mumbles

"BITTERS HAS A BOYFRIEND-" palamo blurted out and all hell came loose once again. 

Oh god. South had completely forgotten that teenagers go through that whole weird dating phase. Being a whole teenager thing was weird and awkward in general. Enough to make South shudder at the thought of her younger self. Not that she was as bad as most horny teens, she was just more focused and had more major anger issues than most.

_And an emo-_

It was not an "emo phase," it was a punk phase, two completely different things. 

Then raised a question, would Theta go through puberty? Can an AI go through puberty? Or age for that matter. Theta's basically 2 years old. How long does it take until adolescence? Is it the same as humans?- 

"And he didn't even think about telling usth about him until now! how rude-" red girl, jensen South remembers, said. Interrupting her line of thoughts 

"HE IS NOT MY BOYFRIEND!" Bitters yelled back in defense, before adding, "he's more annoying than Pedro and all of you combined."

South felt weird being in this conversation, out of place. She wasn't usually a part of these kinds of conversations. There was a reason why she was glad not to be in them in the first place. Aside from that and the second hand embarrassment South had for bitters, that wasn't the reason she felt weird. She felt… giddy, for some reason. The urge to stay when she usually would completely walk away without a second thought by now. 

Then she realized it wasn't her, it was Theta. 

She rolled her eyes. 

Andersmith, the only one who's name South remembers, besides bitters, spoke up, placing a hand on the poor kid's shoulder, "Now Bitters it's perfectly ok that you like guys, there's no need to feel like you needed to keep it a secret-"

Bitters' eyes slightly widened when he realized Andersmith was trying to give him a pep talk. "OH MY GOD- JUST- _STOP TALKING_!" He cried out, trying to cover both his ears and Andersmith’s mouth, blush darkening on his face. 

"for once I agree with Bitters. I don't need a headache this early." South piped up. 

"You should've seen him!" Palamo said, everyone was still on the same topic. 

"Don't care" she rebutted, but South's disinterest fell on deaf ears. Fucking wonderful. 

"He was like the reincarnation of Luke Skywalker" the same kid continues.

Andersmith nods in agreement “Yeah, he really does. It was a little shocking, the resemblance is almost uncanny. "

South had no idea who that was, it sounded vaguely familiar. She could tell Theta was looking up who they were referring too. All she got from there was, blonde dude in robes, but apparently well known. 

"No, no, please. Go on. It's not like I wanted peace and quiet anyways." South said sarcastically. 

"Oh, good!" Jensen replied. 

To which South internally groans,

Jesen continued to speak, "Stho we were walking around and sthaw this blonde dude talking with Bittersth, histh name isth Matthewsth, and was pretty energetic-" 

"Kind of a kiss ass and a bit pathetic" palamo adds. 

That was the only thing South found mildly amusing. 

"Like you're any different." Bitters scoffed at palamo. That seemed to start a mini argument between them. South assumed it was the usual.

"I think he was quite nice, a good role model for a guy like Bitters" andersmith voiced his opinions directly to South

In all honesty they sound pretty stupid.

_I think they sound fun!_

Of course he did

"He'th the complete oppothite of bitterth, I'm not completely thure how they even get along mythelf" said Jensen. 

Bitter whips around to face Jensen and andersmith. 

"We _don't_!" He says to Jensen, with an almost violent looking hand motion. Then makes eye contact with the second redhead, "And role model? In no way is he a role model." 

Andersmith still went on about the whole mystery guy, "Matthews was very excited to meet us. And asked us a lot of questions-"

Bitters interrupts to clarify, "Which I told him not too!" He folded his arms, and his annoyed expression turned into a scowl as he further complaints, "But he never listens, which is _my_ job! He listens to everyone! But not me, that little shit"

"And we ended up telling old stories." Palamo mentions, paying no mind to Bitters. 

"Then it lead to us talking about how I got my scar and-" 

When ander smith mentioned his scar, it immediately caught South's full attention. It's a question she wanted to know the answer to for a while now. She wasn't that much of an insensitive prick to ask it out of the blue. That would've been a super dick move even for her. She didn't know how personal it would be for the guy. 

"Wait, so how did you exactly get that scar?" South asked.

_Is that really ok to ask?_

"Oh, not the one on my face it's a different one,” He answered quickly, “But um if you got the time I could tell you about that one?" 

South shrugged, not really needing to think about it, "Eh you wasted an hour of my time what's another few." 

Andersmith nodded and started to tell the story of how he got his scar, South listened well, "Ok, So It was like any other day...."

* * *

“A sparring session?”

When Gold team had gotten together for training, South didn’t expect she would be told she would be sparring against one of her squishy teammates.

“Yup,” Williams said cheerfully, “Gold team’s more...inexperienced members could use some more training in hand to hand combat, I’m a bit rusty with it as well.”

“And you want _me_ to spar against one of you?” South asked incredulously, “Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

“Well I admit someone of your… caliber, might not get much benefit from this,” the lieutenant says cautiously, hands moving about as he speaks, “Going against someone of your skill will greatly improve the team’s abilities against the average fed!”

South stares at him for a few minutes, then looks to the other team members, who look are chatting with each other, she could tell they were excited for this.

 _I hate to tell you this, but even if you don’t use your full strength you can easily break one of their bones in a single punch,_ Theta sends in.

“Lieutenant I think I might accidentally kill one of them if they spar with me,” South says to him again.

“Hm, you may have a point,” Williams thinks hard, tapping the visor of his helmet.

“Hey Williams!” Pedro shouts loudly through the radios, everyone flinches at the volume.

“Private Pedro, as we discussed, please do not yell through the radios,” the lieutenant says with forced calm, his tone is strained and shoulders tensed.

“Oh, sorry,” Pedro says sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck, having to ignore the glares that Johnson and bitters send him, “I was just wondering if South was joining us in sparring today?”

“We were just discussing that,” Williams turns to address the rest of Gold team, “due to the odd amount of people and the gap in… experience, both South and I were concerned for your safety.” 

“Oh c’mon she’s not _that_ good,” Johnson complains.

“Are you forgetting the fact she killed two entire squads of feds,” Bitters asks.

“ _Everyone_ knows that Bitters, but that's with her fancy armor,” Johnson argues, “Anyone would look badass when they have a dome shield.”

South’s expression twitches.

 _Please don’t kill him,_ Theta texts quickly at the flare of anger South gives him.

“Now, now Johnso-” Williams starts before Pedro cuts him off.

“Oh! I have an idea!” He says cheerily, “What if we all fight South all at once?”

“Two _entire_ squads guys-”

 _Your chances of accidentally breaking one of their bones would go up 10%_ Theta sends in.

“What if I’m out of armor?” South asks, having already shut off her radio.

 _It would go down by 80%_ , she could feel a few faint waves of worry, _are you sure this is a good idea?_

South thinks it over for a moment, she’s been restless for the past week. Filled up with a buzzing energy that no amount of exercise or training was satisfying enough to fix. Her desperate attempts had her trying everything but going to punch some poor soldier, she had even started chewing on her lip again, and _that_ was a bad habit South thought she kicked _years_ ago.

She had gotten like this on the MoI, when she had a long amount of time between missions. Back then, she would drag someone (usually North) into a sparring match, but she didn’t really have that option here.

“It's not,” She says to Theta, a vicious grin forming on her face, “but I’m doing it anyway.”

She turns her Radio back on, tuning back into the conversation to find Johnson and Bitters arguing again.

“Are trying to kill us!?” Bitters shouts.

“Quit being such a pussy Bitters,” Johnson replies.

“No! Not when you’re being suicidal!”

“Oh fuck you!”

“Hey Williams,” South says, “I figured out how to do this.”

“Oh?” The lieutenant turns to face her, the others don’t notice, “How so?”

“I’ll fight the four of them at once, unarmored, but I get to keep my helmet.”

“What!?” WIlliam exclaims, Flores turns her head but none of the others show any reaction, “Are you sure?”

“I wouldn’t be telling you if I wasn’t sure,” South was glad she had a helmet on, or someone might have brought up her growing toothy grin.

After that the Lieutenant agreed, and the freelancer quickly went to one of the locker rooms and took off her armor, leaving only the helmet and bodysuit. The buzzing in South’s chest had only increased, as she went back to the area Gold team was occupying, the same one she fought Felix in weirdly enough.

 _Should I be concerned about how excited you are for this?_ Theta asks on their way back, his nervousness leaking through the message.

“I haven’t been able to spar with anyone in over a _month,_ give me a break,” South replies as she jogs, “Just be glad it’s not the _rat_.”

 _Eugh_ is Theta’s reply and South lets out a snort

“Can’t say I disagree,” She says as she jogs back into the training room

The freelancer marched back into the training area that Gold team was in. South sees Williams putting himself between Bitters and Johnson.

“Alright losers! Let’s get started!” South can’t keep herself from shouting, 

Once everyone was lined up across from South, both sides impatiently waited until lieutenant Williams gave the order to start. A small countdown is in place, three seconds, but for South it feels longer. They hear a buzzer

"AND START" Williams shouts.

No one wastes any time going after South, but she's faster. Johnson was bold, going in for the first punch, but she could respect the direct way to start a fight. She easily dodged and he instantly lost his footing. South used this opportunity to sweep his legs and he fell. She went for another hit, but was blocked 

Turning to see who had grabbed her, Flores. Who gave a kick to South's side, but hesitated for a second. She didn't give flores another glance and locked her hands onto flores' then judo flips her to the ground 

In between that, South swore she heard a muffled 'oh shit', had she just heard right?

_South, Pedro's coming behind you. I think he's going to tackle you?_

She turns back to where Johnson was and sees Pedro running towards her. She didn't expect for him to jump into her. They both fell, with pedro saying "oof" as they landed on the floor. 

Slightly annoyed, South gets up and tosses Pedro back down at Johnson when she sees him getting back up. Which lead to Johnson yelling at them and pedro saying "ow"

"Bitters get off your ass and actually help us!" South hears Johnson shout to Bitters.

"Unlike you I don't want to die today!" Bitters shout back

"This is a training exercise, you have to participate" Williams chimes in.

Still Bitters hides And keeps his distance, so it's up to South to kick his ass. she starts making a full head start into Bitters direction.

Bitters' eyes widen, "Wait no- PLEASE DON'T KILL ME"

His pleas were no use, South gave him a swift kick in the ribs and he flew into the opposite wall. Groaning, Bitters got up, and South to give him another hit

 _At least let him recover before you hit him again._ Theta nagged to her 

She rolled her eyes, fine whatever 

Putting her fists, "I'm in a good mood right now, so I'll let you give the first punch," she says to him. 

He throws a punch, at least Bitters tried, but it was a sloppy punch, easy to block.

"Nice try," She mocked, then giving three punches back. 

Theta pointed out Johnson was done helping both Pedro and Flores up and all of them were about to attack. South turned around, done with Bitters, seeing Flores had made her return. She landed two punches on South, there's still hesitation, making them weaker and lose impact. They still had some strength, maybe for a normal soldier would say it hurt, but to South, it didn't do much. 

South didn't waste anymore time, sweeping Flores legs just like with Johnson, she lost her balance. Catching her by her wrist, South headbuts her and lets go. 

“Hey South,” Williams says, “lets try not to give your teammates' concussions please.” 

“She has a helmet,” South says back “she'll be fine!”

Next up was pedro, who tried to kick South, but she caught his foot, making him fall down again. As she was about to turn around to get Johnson, Pedro latched onto her ankle. It almost made her trip. 

She sighed, "let go of me" 

There was a muffled 'no' coming from pedro as he was still face planted on the ground. 

Attempting to shake him off, with enough force to move his whole body, Pedro kept an iron grip. Even after kicking him a few times. 

"I'll let go if you promise to hang out with us." Pedro said.

South stared at him, "Are you serious right now?"

"You spend time with bitters and his friends, it's not fair." He complains, almost whines

It was unbelievable, all this determination because he was jealous? Are you kidding?! 

_I mean he does have a point you have only been hanging out with Bitters_

“That’s only because Bitters ambushes me when I’m training!” She says to them both

“Still!” Pedro cries, his helmets on, but South can tell he’s pouting.

"I- ok fine just let go of me already" She says

"Ok!" With that he lets go, the freelancer is about to prepare for Johnson when an overwhelming rush of Panic crashes into South and Theta quickly texts.

_South you need to turn around!_

**_SOUTH LOOKOUT_ **Theta screams, fear clear in his voice. She swiftly pivots to face where Johnson had been and-

**_Clang!_ **

And then south was hit, hard, and it _hurt_. For the first time she lost her footing and knelt down. Her vision was blurry, everything sounded muffled, even Theta, who she knew was shouting in a way only she could hear, sounded far away. She looked to see Johnson with some kind of training equipment, it was heavy, was it weights? She couldn’t quite tell, her vision was hazy. Theta’s concern and panic had an underlying feeling of relief, and it took a moment for south to figure out why. Johnson hadn’t been expecting her to turn around, he’d been aiming for the back of her head.

The back of her head, where her implants are.

Where _Theta_ was.

This asshole was about to hit her implants-

About to hit **_Theta_ **

With whatever fucking training equipment he was carrying.

South stopped caring, she was too pissed off to care. Johnson wanted to fight dirty? Well then she’d fight dirty. 

“Theta, how big can you make a shield?” she says, but she can’t quite feel the words in her mouth.

**_What?! I- um... Pretty big I guess, why?_ **

“Put a shield around me and Johnson, big enough where we can fight”

**_Is this really a good idea?_ **

“Just do it Theta. I'm _not_ asking”

The dome goes up around them as the freelancer stands up again, slowly, because holy _fuck_ did her head still hurt from that hit. She looked back as her vision started to clear, she didn’t notice Johnson looking around in confusion, she wouldn’t have cared if she did. 

South went full force and punched Johnson in the stomach, sending him flying up into the ceiling of the dome. He quickly took off his helmet to puke out this morning's breakfast, but then he put it back on and got back up again. She paid no mind to the gold team's panic & shouts for both of them to stop, he wasn’t surrendering, and the Freelancer was _pissed_. 

She picked him up from the bottom of his chest piece, throwing him again, admittingly with less force, then started circling him. He wasn't backing down. His fist were up and he went for a blow. He had many openings south could choose from. She stepped out the way and did a roundhouse kick. Down onto the ground once again, South took her opportunity to stomp on his back to pin him and twist his arm.

He yelled out in pain. 

**_Don't break his arm!_ **

“Why not?!”

**_Because it's not right!_ **

"Apologize, _now_ " South demands, finally starting to feel her words again. 

"Fuck, Off" johnson says throw gritted teeth 

So south squeezing and twisting harder, and he screams again, "say you're sorry or I break your arm."

Neither of them were giving up. South didn't even noticed the barriers coming down until Williams broke them off

"THAT'S **_ENOUGH,_ **" he shouted and for the first time since she and Theta had been here, he looked angry. 

Williams proceeded to rip off their helmet, They then took a deep breath before turning to the rest gold team "everyone go to the medic bay and get Johnson checked out"

"I'm going to have to talk with _him_ afterwards" Williams gives him a stern look and Johnson looks away, making himself seem small under the lieutenant’s gaze. Flores and Bitters lift the private up by his arms and carry him out, Pedro nervously following behind. 

Then he looked to South, his expression not changing.

At a first glance, lieutenant Williams was an average looking man, he was deeply tanned with warm brown hair and eyes. He had no facial scars and the beginnings of a beard on his chin, but his gaze was sharp and expression cold and stern.

South knew that expression didn’t belong on their face, despite the fact she’d never seen it before.

South felt… scared. Well more like she could feel Theta's fear about getting in trouble. Especially from someone like lieutenant Williams. It kinda made her feel like a kid again. It's a feeling she doesn't like.

“What. Was. _That_ ,” he says slowly and firmly, South shoves down some anxiety.

“Can you be more specific _sir_?” Despite the nervousness, she was still a little pissed.

“Things were going fine when we started, you were a bit brutal. But that was more on my fault for not setting limits to the sparring session,” the man starts before glaring at the freelancer, “Ms. Dakota would you please explain to me why I had to _tear you off_ of Private Johnson?”

South initially flinches at being called “Ms Dakota,” Castro must have told him, she rips off her own helmet to hold a hand over her implant, she knows its less secure but the warmth makes it feel more protected.

“He slammed a heavy weight against my skull that's why!” She snaps back, “If I hadn’t turned when I did there was a good chance he’d hit-”

South bites down the rest of her sentence, realizing she was about to say _my implants_.

“I understand that South,” Williams says, and the freelance bites back a sarcastic comment, “I just wish you would have let _me_ handle the situation rather than locking him and yourself inside a dome.”

He lets out a sigh, then his gaze softens.

“I hope you believe me when I say Johnson is _not_ getting off scot free with this,” his voice goes down to its normal gentler tone, “after he gets checked in the medical bay I’m going to rip him a new one lemme tell you.”

The two of them laugh a little at that, the lieutenant pats her shoulder (it’s a bit awkward since South has a good 4-5 inches on him) before leaving.

“You’re dismissed South,” he says, “but I’d see Dr. Bowen about that bloody nose of yours.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Williams goes by he/they pronouns
> 
> I'm also thinking of changing the name for this fic, cause it's also the name of the series, lemme know if you guys approve or not!


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